"Oh I don't ask you to abuse or describe or in any way pronounce on
your relatives; I simply put it to you once more whether you're NOW
ready. You say you've 'seen.' Is what you've seen that you can't
resist?"
Chad gave him a strange smile--the nearest approach he had ever
shown to a troubled one. "Can't you make me NOT resist?"
"What it comes to," Strether went on very gravely now and as if he
hadn't heard him, "what it comes to is that more has been done for
you, I think, than I've ever seen done--attempted perhaps, but
never so successfully done--by one human being for another."
"Oh an immense deal certainly"--Chad did it full justice. "And you
yourself are adding to it."
It was without heeding this either that his visitor continued.
"And our friends there won't have it."
"No, they simply won't."
"They demand you on the basis, as it were, of repudiation and
ingratitude; and what has been the matter with me," Strether went
on, "is that I haven't seen my way to working with you for
repudiation."
Chad appreciated this. "Then as you haven't seen yours you
naturally haven't seen mine. There it is." After which he
proceeded, with a certain abruptness, to a sharp interrogation.
"NOW do you say she doesn't hate me?"
Strether hesitated.
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