This added to his own sense of having gone
far with her-gave him an early illustration of a much shorter
course. There was a certitude he immediately grasped--a conviction
that Waymarsh would quite fail, as it were, and on whatever degree
of acquaintances to profit by her.
There had been after the first interchange among the three a talk
of some five minutes in the hall, and then the two men had
adjourned to the garden, Miss Gostrey for the time disappearing.
Strether in due course accompanied his friend to the room he had
bespoken and had, before going out, scrupulously visited; where at
the end of another half-hour he had no less discreetly left him.
On leaving him he repaired straight to his own room, but with the
prompt effect of feeling the compass of that chamber resented by
his condition. There he enjoyed at once the first consequence of
their reunion. A place was too small for him after it that had
seemed large enough before. He had awaited it with something he
would have been sorry, have been almost ashamed not to recognise as
emotion, yet with a tacit assumption at the same time that emotion
would in the event find itself relieved. The actual oddity was that
he was only more excited; and his excitement-to which indeed he
would have found it difficult instantly to give a name--brought him
once more downstairs and caused him for some minutes vaguely to
wander.
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