A strange new feeling had
come over Strether, in consequence of which his spirits had risen;
it was as if what had occurred on the alighting of his critics had
been something other than his fear, though his fear had vet not
been of an instant scene of violence. His impression had been
nothing but what was inevitable--he said that to himself; yet
relief and reassurance had softly dropped upon him. Nothing could
be so odd as to be indebted for these things to the look of faces
and the sound of voices that had been with him to satiety, as he
might have said, for years; but he now knew, all the same, how
uneasy he had felt; that was brought home to him by his present
sense of a respite. It had come moreover in the flash of an eye, it
had come in the smile with which Sarah, whom, at the window of her
compartment, they had effusively greeted from the platform, rustled
down to them a moment later, fresh and handsome from her cool June
progress through the charming land. It was only a sign, but enough:
she was going to be gracious and unallusive, she was going to play
the larger game--which was still more apparent, after she had
emerged from Chad's arms, in her direct greeting to the valued
friend of her family.
Strether WAS then as much as ever the valued friend of her family,
it was something he could at all events go on with; and the manner
of his response to it expressed even for himself how little he had
enjoyed the prospect of ceasing to figure in that likeness.
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