He had spent the previous evening with all his old friends
together yet he would still have described himself as quite in the
dark in respect to a forecast of their influence on his situation.
It was strange now, none the less, that in the light of this
unexpected note of her presence he felt Madame de Vionnet a part
of that situation as she hadn't even yet been. She was alone, he
found himself assuming, with Sarah, and there was a bearing in
that--somehow beyond his control--on his personal fate. Yet she
was only saying something quite easy and independent--the thing
she had come, as a good friend of Chad's, on purpose to say.
"There isn't anything at all--? I should be so delighted."
It was clear enough, when they were there before him, how she had
been received. He saw this, as Sarah got up to greet him, from
something fairly hectic in Sarah's face. He saw furthermore that
they weren't, as had first come to him, alone together; he was at
no loss as to the identity of the broad high back presented to
him in the embrasure of the window furthest from the door.
Waymarsh, whom he had to-day not yet seen, whom he only knew to
have left the hotel before him, and who had taken part, the night
previous, on Mrs.
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