Other things, with this advantage of their virtually
having the night before them, came up for them, and had, as well,
the odd effect of making the occasion, instead of hurried and
feverish, one of the largest, loosest and easiest to which
Strether's whole adventure was to have treated him. He had been
pursuing Chad from an early hour and had overtaken him only now;
but now the delay was repaired by their being so exceptionally
confronted. They had foregathered enough of course in all the
various times; they had again and again, since that first night at
the theatre, been face to face over their question; but they had
never been so alone together as they were actually alone--their
talk hadn't yet been so supremely for themselves. And if many
things moreover passed before them, none passed more distinctly for
Strether than that striking truth about Chad of which he had been
so often moved to take note: the truth that everything came
happily back with him to his knowing how to live. It had been
seated in his pleased smile--a smile that pleased exactly in the
right degree--as his visitor turned round, on the balcony, to greet
his advent; his visitor in fact felt on the spot that there was
nothing their meeting would so much do as bear witness to that
facility.
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