That idea, even though
but transient and perhaps belated, had performed the office of
putting Strether more at his ease, and the blurred picture had
already dropped--dropped with the sound of something else said and
with his becoming aware, by another quick turn, that Gloriani was
now on the sofa talking with Jeanne, while he himself had in his
ears again the familiar friendliness and the elusive meaning of the
"Oh, oh, oh!" that had made him, a fortnight before, challenge Miss
Barrace in vain. She had always the air, this picturesque and
original lady, who struck him, so oddly, as both antique and
modern--she had always the air of taking up some joke that one had
already had out with her. The point itself, no doubt, was what was
antique, and the use she made of it what was modern. He felt just
now that her good-natured irony did bear on something, and it
troubled him a little that she wouldn't be more explicit only
assuring him, with the pleasure of observation so visible in her,
that she wouldn't tell him more for the world. He could take refuge
but in asking her what she had done with Waymarsh, though it must
be added that he felt himself a little on the way to a clue after
she had answered that this personage was, in the other room,
engaged in conversation with Madame de Vionnet.
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