III
Almost the first thing, strangely enough, that, about an hour
later, Strether found himself doing in Sarah's presence was to
remark articulately on this failure, in their friend, of what had
been superficially his great distinction. It was as if--he alluded
of course to the grand manner--the dear man had sacrificed it to
some other advantage; which would be of course only for himself to
measure. It might be simply that he was physically so much more
sound than on his first coming out; this was all prosaic,
comparatively cheerful and vulgar. And fortunately, if one came to
that, his improvement in health was really itself grander than any
manner it could be conceived as having cost him. "You yourself
alone, dear Sarah"--Strether took the plunge--"have done him, it
strikes me, in these three weeks, as much good as all the rest of
his time together."
It was a plunge because somehow the range of reference was, in the
conditions, "funny," and made funnier still by Sarah's attitude, by
the turn the occasion had, with her appearance, so sensibly taken.
Her appearance was really indeed funnier than anything else--the
spirit in which he felt her to be there as soon as she was there,
the shade of obscurity that cleared up for him as soon as he was
seated with her in the small salon de lecture that had, for the
most part, in all the weeks, witnessed the wane of his early
vivacity of discussion with Waymarsh.
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