"
Oh it would have taken his companion too long to say! "That's
because you have, I verily believe, no imagination. You've other
qualities. But no imagination, don't you see? at all."
"I dare say. I do see." It was an idea in which Chad showed
interest. "But haven't you yourself rather too much?"
"Oh RATHER--!" So that after an instant, under this reproach and
as if it were at last a fact really to escape from, Strether made
his move for departure.
II
One of the features of the restless afternoon passed by him after
Mrs. Pocock's visit was an hour spent, shortly before dinner, with
Maria Gostrey, whom of late, in spite of so sustained a call on his
attention from other quarters, he had by no means neglected. And
that he was still not neglecting her will appear from the fact that
he was with her again at the same hour on the very morrow--with no
less fine a consciousness moreover of being able to hold her ear.
It continued inveterately to occur, for that matter, that whenever
he had taken one of his greater turns he came back to where she so
faithfully awaited him. None of these excursions had on the whole
been livelier than the pair of incidents--the fruit of the short
interval since his previous visit--on which he had now to report to
her.
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