For two very happy persons he found himself straightway
taking them--a young man in shirt-sleeves, a young woman easy and
fair, who had pulled pleasantly up from some other place and, being
acquainted with the neighbourhood, had known what this particular
retreat could offer them. The air quite thickened, at their
approach, with further intimations; the intimation that they were
expert, familiar, frequent--that this wouldn't at all events be
the first time. They knew how to do it, he vaguely felt--and it
made them but the more idyllic, though at the very moment
of the impression, as happened, their boat seemed to have begun to
drift wide, the oarsman letting it go. It had by this time none
the less come much nearer--near enough for Strether to dream the
lady in the stern had for some reason taken account of his being
there to watch them. She had remarked on it sharply, yet her
companion hadn't turned round; it was in fact almost as if our
friend had felt her bid him keep still. She had taken in something
as a result of which their course had wavered, and it continued to
waver while they just stood off. This little effect was sudden and
rapid, so rapid that Strether's sense of it was separate only for
an instant from a sharp start of his own.
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