"Oh yes, my dear,
it's all right, it's ME; and who are YOU, with your interesting
wrinkles and your most effective (is it the handsomest, is it the
ugliest?) of noses?"--some such loose handful of bright flowers
she seemed, fragrantly enough, to fling at him. Strether almost
wondered--at such a pace was he going--if some divination of the
influence of either party were what determined Madame de Vionnet's
abstention. One of the gentlemen, in any case, succeeded in
placing himself in close relation with our friend's companion; a
gentleman rather stout and importantly short, in a hat with a
wonderful wide curl to its brim and a frock coat buttoned with an
effect of superlative decision. His French had quickly turned to
equal English, and it occurred to Strether that he might well be
one of the ambassadors. His design was evidently to assert a claim
to Madame de Vionnet's undivided countenance, and he made it good
in the course of a minute--led her away with a trick of three
words; a trick played with a social art of which Strether, looking
after them as the four, whose backs were now all turned, moved
off, felt himself no master.
He sank again upon his bench and, while his eyes followed the
party, reflected, as he had done before, on Chad's strange
communities.
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