Strether liked him for it, on the spot, as he hadn't
yet liked him; it affected him while it lasted as he might have
been affected by some light pleasant perfect work of art: to that
degree that he wondered if they were really worthy of it, took it
in and did it justice; to that degree that it would have been
scarce a miracle if, there in the luggage-room, while they waited
for their things, Sarah had pulled his sleeve and drawn him aside.
"You're right; we haven't quite known what you mean, Mother and I,
but now we see. Chad's magnificent; what can one want more? If THIS
is the kind of thing--!" On which they might, as it were, have
embraced and begun to work together.
Ah how much, as it was, for all her bridling brightness--which was
merely general and noticed nothing--WOULD they work together?
Strether knew he was unreasonable; he set it down to his being
nervous: people couldn't notice everything and speak of everything
in a quarter of an hour. Possibly, no doubt, also, he made too much
of Chad's display. Yet, none the less, when, at the end of five
minutes, in the cab, Jim Pocock had said nothing either--hadn't
said, that is, what Strether wanted, though he had said much else--
it all suddenly bounced back to their being either stupid or
wilful.
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