There it remained for some
minutes, until, at last looking up, he saw Waymarsh watching him
from within. It was on this that their eyes met--met for a moment
during which neither moved. But Strether then got up, folding his
telegram more carefully and putting it into his waistcoat pocket
A few minutes later the friends were seated together at dinner; but
Strether had meanwhile said nothing about it, and they eventually
parted, after coffee in the court, with nothing said on either
side. Our friend had moreover the consciousness that even less than
usual was on this occasion said between them, so that it was almost
as if each had been waiting for something from the other. Waymarsh
had always more or less the air of sitting at the door of his tent,
and silence, after so many weeks, had come to play its part in
their concert. This note indeed, to Strether's sense, had lately
taken a fuller tone, and it was his fancy to-night that they had
never quite so drawn it out. Yet it befell, none the less that he
closed the door to confidence when his companion finally asked him
if there were anything particular the matter with him. "Nothing,"
he replied, "more than usual."
On the morrow, however, at an early hour, he found occasion to give
an answer more in consonance with the facts.
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