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.
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