"
"They don't lash about and shake the cage," said Jim, who seemed
pleased with his analogy; "and it's at feeding-time that they're
quietest. But they always get there."
"They do indeed--they always get there!" Strether replied with a
laugh that justified his confession of nervousness. He disliked to
be talking sincerely of Mrs. Newsome with Pocock; he could have
talked insincerely. But there was something he wanted to know, a
need created in him by her recent intermission, by his having
given from the first so much, as now more than ever appeared to
him, and got so little. It was as if a queer truth in his
companion's metaphor had rolled over him with a rush. She HAD been
quiet at feeding-time; she had fed, and Sarah had fed with her,
out of the big bowl of all his recent free communication, his
vividness and pleasantness, his ingenuity and even his eloquence,
while the current of her response had steadily run thin. Jim
meanwhile however, it was true, slipped characteristically into
shallowness from the moment he ceased to speak out of the
experience of a husband.
"But of course Chad has now the advantage of being there before
her. If he doesn't work that for all it's worth--!" He sighed with
contingent pity at his brother-in-law's possible want of resource.
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