The Ambassadors Henry James (novel24 txt) 📖

up. They would become as thick as thieves⁠—which moreover was but a development of what Strether remembered to have said in one of his first discussions with his mate, struck as he had then already been with the elements of affinity between that personage and Mrs. Newsome herself. “I told him, one day, when he had questioned me on your mother, that she was a person who, when he should know her, would rouse in him, I was sure, a special enthusiasm; and that hangs together with the conviction we now feel⁠—this certitude that Mrs. Pocock will take him into her boat. For it’s your mother’s own boat that she’s pulling.”

“Ah,” said Chad, “Mother’s worth fifty of Sally!”

“A thousand; but when you presently meet her, all the same you’ll be meeting your mother’s representative⁠—just as I shall. I feel like the outgoing ambassador,” said Strether, “doing honour to his appointed successor.” A moment after speaking as he had just done he felt he had inadvertently rather cheapened Mrs. Newsome to her son; an impression audibly reflected, as at first seen, in Chad’s prompt protest. He had recently rather failed of apprehension of the young man’s attitude and temper⁠—remaining principally conscious of how little worry, at the worst, he wasted, and he studied him at this critical hour with renewed interest. Chad had done exactly what he had promised him a fortnight previous⁠—had accepted without another question his plea for delay. He was waiting cheerfully and handsomely, but also inscrutably and with a slight increase perhaps of the hardness originally involved in his acquired high polish. He was neither excited nor depressed; was easy and acute and deliberate⁠—unhurried unflurried unworried, only at most a little less amused than usual. Strether felt him more than ever a justification of the extraordinary process of which his own absurd spirit had been the arena; he knew as their cab rolled along, knew as he hadn’t even yet known, that nothing else than what Chad had done and had been would have led to his present showing. They had made him, these things, what he was, and the business hadn’t been easy; it had taken time and trouble, it had cost, above all, a price. The result at any rate was now to be offered to Sally; which Strether, so far as that was concerned, was glad to be there to witness. Would she in the least make it out or take it in, the result, or would she in the least care for it if she did? He scratched his chin as he asked himself by what name, when challenged⁠—as he was sure he should be⁠—he could call it for her. Oh those were determinations she must herself arrive at; since she wanted so much to see, let her see then and welcome. She had come out in the pride of her competence, yet it hummed in Strether’s inner sense that she practically wouldn’t see.

That this was moreover what Chad shrewdly suspected was clear from a word that next dropped from him. “They’re children; they play at life!”⁠—and the exclamation was significant and reassuring. It implied that he hadn’t then, for his companion’s sensibility, appeared to give Mrs. Newsome away; and it facilitated our friend’s presently asking him if it were his idea that Mrs. Pocock and Madame de Vionnet should become acquainted. Strether was still more sharply struck, hereupon, with Chad’s lucidity. “Why, isn’t that exactly⁠—to get a sight of the company I keep⁠—what she has come out for?”

“Yes⁠—I’m afraid it is,” Strether unguardedly replied.

Chad’s quick rejoinder lighted his precipitation. “Why do you say you’re afraid?”

“Well, because I feel a certain responsibility. It’s my testimony, I imagine, that will have been at the bottom of Mrs. Pocock’s curiosity. My letters, as I’ve supposed you to understand from the beginning, have spoken freely. I’ve certainly said my little say about Madame de Vionnet.”

All that, for Chad, was beautifully obvious. “Yes, but you’ve only spoken handsomely.”

“Never more handsomely of any woman. But it’s just that tone⁠—!”

“That tone,” said Chad, “that has fetched her? I dare say; but I’ve no quarrel with you about it. And no more has Madame de Vionnet. Don’t you know by this time how she likes you?”

“Oh!”⁠—and Strether had, with his groan, a real pang of melancholy. “For all I’ve done for her!”

“Ah you’ve done a great deal.”

Chad’s urbanity fairly shamed him, and he was at this moment absolutely impatient to see the face Sarah Pocock would present to a sort of thing, as he synthetically phrased it to himself, with no adequate forecast of which, despite his admonitions, she would certainly arrive. “I’ve done this!”

“Well, this is all right. She likes,” Chad comfortably remarked, “to be liked.”

It gave his companion a moment’s thought. “And she’s sure Mrs. Pocock will⁠—?”

“No, I say that for you. She likes your liking her; it’s so much, as it were,” Chad laughed, “to the good. However, she doesn’t despair of Sarah either, and is prepared, on her own side, to go all lengths.”

“In the way of appreciation?”

“Yes, and of everything else. In the way of general amiability, hospitality and welcome. She’s under arms,” Chad laughed again; “she’s prepared.”

Strether took it in; then as if an echo of Miss Barrace were in the air: “She’s wonderful.”

“You don’t begin to know how wonderful!”

There was a depth in it, to Strether’s ear, of confirmed luxury⁠—almost a kind of unconscious insolence of proprietorship; but the effect of the glimpse was not at this moment to foster speculation: there was something so conclusive in so much graceful and generous assurance. It was in fact a fresh evocation; and the evocation had before many minutes another consequence. “Well, I shall see her oftener now. I shall see her as much as I like⁠—by your leave; which is what I hitherto haven’t done.”

“It has been,” said Chad, but without reproach, “only your own fault. I tried to bring you together, and she, my dear fellow⁠—I never saw her more charming to any man. But you’ve got your extraordinary ideas.”

“Well,