At
any rate, as turned out, she had been wanting herself, quite a
while, to come. "I told her," said Waymarsh, "that it would have
been a bright idea if she had only carried it out before."
Strether pronounced it so bright as to be almost dazzling. "But
why HASn't she carried it out before? She has seen me every day--
she had only to name her hour. I've been waiting and waiting."
"Well, I told her you had. And she has been waiting too." It was,
in the oddest way in the world, on the showing of this tone, a
genial new pressing coaxing Waymarsh; a Waymarsh conscious with a
different consciousness from any he had yet betrayed, and actually
rendered by it almost insinuating. He lacked only time for full
persuasion, and Strether was to see in a moment why. Meantime,
however, our friend perceived, he was announcing a step of some
magnanimity on Mrs. Pocock's part, so that he could deprecate a
sharp question. It was his own high purpose in fact to have
smoothed sharp questions to rest. He looked his old comrade very
straight in the eyes, and he had never conveyed to him in so mute a
manner so much kind confidence and so much good advice. Everything
that was between them was again in his face, but matured and
shelved and finally disposed of.
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