For a moment they stood confronted; then the
moment placed her: he had noticed her the day before, noticed her
at his previous inn, where--again in the hall--she had been briefly
engaged with some people of his own ship's company. Nothing had
actually passed between them, and he would as little have been able
to say what had been the sign of her face for him on the first
occasion as to name the ground of his present recognition.
Recognition at any rate appeared to prevail on her own side as
well--which would only have added to the mystery. All she now began
by saying to him nevertheless was that, having chanced to catch his
enquiry, she was moved to ask, by his leave, if it were possibly a
question of Mr. Waymarsh of Milrose Connecticut--Mr. Waymarsh the
American lawyer.
"Oh yes," he replied, "my very well-known friend. He's to meet me
here, coming up from Malvern, and I supposed he'd already have
arrived. But he doesn't come till later, and I'm relieved not to
have kept him. Do you know him?" Strether wound up.
It wasn't till after he had spoken that he became aware of how much
there had been in him of response; when the tone of her own
rejoinder, as well as the play of something more in her face--
something more, that is, than its apparently usual restless light--
seemed to notify him.
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