The artist used that
word the next moment smiling courteously, wiping his nippers and
looking round him further--paying the place in short by the very
manner of his presence and by something Strether fancied he could
make out in this particular glance, such a tribute as, to the
latter's sense, settled many things once for all. Strether was
conscious at this instant, for that matter, as he hadn't yet been,
of how, round about him, quite without him, they WERE consistently
settled. Gloriani's smile, deeply Italian, he considered, and
finely inscrutable, had had for him, during dinner, at which they
were not neighbours, an indefinite greeting; but the quality in it
was gone that had appeared on the other occasion to turn him inside
out; it was as if even the momentary link supplied by the doubt
between them had snapped. He was conscious now of the final
reality, which was that there wasn't so much a doubt as a
difference altogether; all the more that over the difference the
famous sculptor seemed to signal almost condolingly, yet oh how
vacantly! as across some great flat sheet of water. He threw out
the bridge of a charming hollow civility on which Strether wouldn't
have trusted his own full weight a moment.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327