With the initiative she now attributed to Chad
it all made a sense, and this sense--a light, a lead, was what had
abruptly risen before him. He wanted, once more, to get off with
these things; which was at last made easy, a servant having, for
his assistance, on hearing voices in the hall, just come forward.
All that Strether had made out was, while the man opened the door
and impersonally waited, summed up in his last word. "I don't
think, you know, Chad will tell me anything."
"No--perhaps not yet."
"And I won't as yet speak to him."
"Ah that's as you'll think best. You must judge."
She had finally given him her hand, which he held a moment. "How
MUCH I have to judge!"
"Everything," said Madame de Vionnet: a remark that was indeed--
with the refined disguised suppressed passion of her face--what he
most carried away.
II
So far as a direct approach was concerned Sarah had neglected him,
for the week now about to end, with a civil consistency of chill
that, giving him a higher idea of her social resource, threw him
back on the general reflexion that a woman could always be amazing.
It indeed helped a little to console him that he felt sure she had
for the same period also left Chad's curiosity hanging; though on
the other hand, for his personal relief, Chad could at least go
through the various motions--and he made them extraordinarily
numerous--of seeing she had a good time.
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