"He has worked it on YOU, pretty well, eh?" and he asked the next
moment if there were anything new at the Varieties, which he
pronounced in the American manner. They talked about the
Varieties--Strether confessing to a knowledge which produced again
on Pocock's part a play of innuendo as vague as a nursery-rhyme,
yet as aggressive as an elbow in his side; and they finished their
drive under the protection of easy themes. Strether waited to the
end, but still in vain, for any show that Jim had seen Chad as
different; and he could scarce have explained the discouragement
he drew from the absence of this testimony. It was what he had
taken his own stand on, so far as he had taken a stand; and if
they were all only going to see nothing he had only wasted his
time. He gave his friend till the very last moment, till they had
come into sight of the hotel; and when poor Pocock only continued
cheerful and envious and funny he fairly grew to dislike him, to
feel him extravagantly common. If they were ALL going to see
nothing!--Strether knew, as this came back to him, that he was
also letting Pocock represent for him what Mrs. Newsome wouldn't
see. He went on disliking, in the light of Jim's commonness, to
talk to him about that lady; yet just before the cab pulled up he
knew the extent of his desire for the real word from Woollett.
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