He knew everything, Strether
more and more felt, that he thus disclaimed, and his little
punishment was just in this doom to a second fib. What falser
position--given the man--could the most vindictive mind impose?
He ended by squeezing through a passage in which three months before
he would certainly have stuck fast. "Mrs Pocock will probably be
ready herself to answer any enquiry you may put to her. But,"
he continued, "BUT--!" He faltered on it.
"But what? Don't put her too many?"
Waymarsh looked large, but the harm was done; he couldn't, do what
he would, help looking rosy. "Don't do anything you'll be sorry for."
It was an attenuation, Strether guessed, of something else that had
been on his lips; it was a sudden drop to directness, and was
thereby the voice of sincerity. He had fallen to the supplicating
note, and that immediately, for our friend, made a difference and
reinstated him. They were in communication as they had been, that
first morning, in Sarah's salon and in her presence and Madame de
Vionnet's; and the same recognition of a great good will was again,
after all, possible. Only the amount of response Waymarsh had then
taken for granted was doubled, decupled now. This came out when he
presently said: "Of course I needn't assure you I hope you'll
come with us.
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