There wasn't a motion on
which, in her presence, poor Strether could so much as venture, and
all he could do when he was out of it was to walk over for a talk
with Maria. He walked over of course much less than usual, but he
found a special compensation in a certain half-hour during which,
toward the close of a crowded empty expensive day, his several
companions seemed to him so disposed of as to give his forms and
usages a rest. He had been with them in the morning and had
nevertheless called on the Pococks in the afternoon; but their
whole group, he then found, had dispersed after a fashion of which
it would amuse Miss Gostrey to hear. He was sorry again, gratefully
sorry she was so out of it--she who had really put him in; but she
had fortunately always her appetite for news. The pure flame of the
disinterested burned in her cave of treasures as a lamp in a
Byzantine vault. It was just now, as happened, that for so fine a
sense as hers a near view would have begun to pay. Within three
days, precisely, the situation on which he was to report had shown
signs of an equilibrium; the effect of his look in at the hotel was
to confirm this appearance. If the equilibrium might only prevail!
Sarah was out with Waymarsh, Mamie was out with Chad, and Jim was
out alone.
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