Having them thus come out
to him was as if he had returned to find them: and the droll
promptitude of Jim's mental reaction threw his own initiation far
back into the past. Whoever might or mightn't be suited by what was
going on among them, Jim, for one, would certainly be: his instant
recognition--frank and whimsical--of what the affair was for HIM
gave Strether a glow of pleasure. "I say, you know, this IS about
my shape, and if it hadn't been for YOU--!" so he broke out as the
charming streets met his healthy appetite; and he wound up, after
an expressive nudge, with a clap of his companion's knee and an "Oh
you, you--you ARE doing it!" that was charged with rich meaning.
Strether felt in it the intention of homage, but, with a curiosity
otherwise occupied, postponed taking it up. What he was asking
himself for the time was how Sarah Pocock, in the opportunity
already given her, had judged her brother--from whom he himself, as
they finally, at the station, separated for their different
conveyances, had had a look into which he could read more than one
message. However Sarah was judging her brother, Chad's conclusion
about his sister, and about her husband and her husband's sister,
was at the least on the way not to fail of confidence.
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