The Ambassadors Henry James (novel24 txt) 📖

“Impayable, as you say, no doubt. But what am I to myself?” Strether had risen with this, giving his attention now to an encounter that, in the middle of the garden, was in the act of taking place between their host and the lady at whose side Madame de Vionnet had quitted him. This lady, who appeared within a few minutes to have left her friends, awaited Gloriani’s eager approach with words on her lips that Strether couldn’t catch, but of which her interesting witty face seemed to give him the echo. He was sure she was prompt and fine, but also that she had met her match, and he liked⁠—in the light of what he was quite sure was the Duchess’s latent insolence⁠—the good humour with which the great artist asserted equal resources. Were they, this pair, of the “great world”?⁠—and was he himself, for the moment and thus related to them by his observation, in it? Then there was something in the great world covertly tigerish, which came to him across the lawn and in the charming air as a waft from the jungle. Yet it made him admire most of the two, made him envy, the glossy male tiger, magnificently marked. These absurdities of the stirred sense, fruits of suggestion ripening on the instant, were all reflected in his next words to little Bilham. “I know⁠—if we talk of that⁠—whom I should enjoy being like!”

Little Bilham followed his eyes; but then as with a shade of knowing surprise: “Gloriani?”

Our friend had in fact already hesitated, though not on the hint of his companion’s doubt, in which there were depths of critical reserve. He had just made out, in the now full picture, something and somebody else; another impression had been superimposed. A young girl in a white dress and a softly plumed white hat had suddenly come into view, and what was presently clear was that her course was toward them. What was clearer still was that the handsome young man at her side was Chad Newsome, and what was clearest of all was that she was therefore Mademoiselle de Vionnet, that she was unmistakeably pretty⁠—bright gentle shy happy wonderful⁠—and that Chad now, with a consummate calculation of effect, was about to present her to his old friend’s vision. What was clearest of all indeed was something much more than this, something at the single stroke of which⁠—and wasn’t it simply juxtaposition?⁠—all vagueness vanished. It was the click of a spring⁠—he saw the truth. He had by this time also met Chad’s look; there was more of it in that; and the truth, accordingly, so far as Bilham’s enquiry was concerned, had thrust in the answer. “Oh Chad!”⁠—it was that rare youth he should have enjoyed being “like.” The virtuous attachment would be all there before him; the virtuous attachment would be in the very act of appeal for his blessing; Jeanne de Vionnet, this charming creature, would be exquisitely, intensely now⁠—the object of it. Chad brought her straight up to him, and Chad was, oh yes, at this moment⁠—for the glory of Woollett or whatever⁠—better still even than Gloriani. He had plucked this blossom; he had kept it overnight in water; and at last as he held it up to wonder he did enjoy his effect. That was why Strether had felt at first the breath of calculation⁠—and why moreover, as he now knew, his look at the girl would be, for the young man, a sign of the latter’s success. What young man had ever paraded about that way, without a reason, a maiden in her flower? And there was nothing in his reason at present obscure. Her type sufficiently told of it⁠—they wouldn’t, they couldn’t, want her to go to Woollett. Poor Woollett, and what it might miss!⁠—though brave Chad indeed too, and what it might gain! Brave Chad however had just excellently spoken. “This is a good little friend of mine who knows all about you and has moreover a message for you. And this, my dear”⁠—he had turned to the child herself⁠—“is the best man in the world, who has it in his power to do a great deal for us and whom I want you to like and revere as nearly as possible as much as I do.”

She stood there quite pink, a little frightened, prettier and prettier and not a bit like her mother. There was in this last particular no resemblance but that of youth to youth; and here was in fact suddenly Strether’s sharpest impression. It went wondering, dazed, embarrassed, back to the woman he had just been talking with; it was a revelation in the light of which he already saw she would become more interesting. So slim and fresh and fair, she had yet put forth this perfection; so that for really believing it of her, for seeing her to any such developed degree as a mother, comparison would be urgent. Well, what was it now but fairly thrust upon him? “Mamma wishes me to tell you before we go,” the girl said, “that she hopes very much you’ll come to see us very soon. She has something important to say to you.”

“She quite reproaches herself,” Chad helpfully explained: “you were interesting her so much when she accidentally suffered you to be interrupted.”

“Ah don’t mention it!” Strether murmured, looking kindly from one to the other and wondering at many things.

“And I’m to ask you for myself,” Jeanne continued with her hands clasped together as if in some small learnt prayer⁠—“I’m to ask you for myself if you won’t positively come.”

“Leave it to me, dear⁠—I’ll take care of it!” Chad genially declared in answer to this, while Strether himself almost held his breath. What was in the girl was indeed too soft, too unknown for direct dealing; so that one could only gaze at it as at a picture, quite staying one’s own hand. But