He had made them--and by no fault of their own--momentarily pull it for
him, the possibility, out of this vagueness; and must he not therefore
take it now as they had had simply, with whatever thin attenuations,
to give it to him? The very question, it may be added, made him feel
lonely and cold. There was the element of the awkward all round, but
Chad and Madame de Vionnet had at least the comfort that they could talk
it over together. With whom could HE talk of such things?--unless
indeed always, at almost any stage, with Maria? He foresaw that
Miss Gostrey would come again into requisition on the morrow;
though it wasn't to be denied that he was already a little afraid
of her "What on earth--that's what I want to know now--had you
then supposed?" He recognised at last that he had really been trying
all along to suppose nothing. Verily, verily, his labour had been lost.
He found himself supposing innumerable and wonderful things.
Book Twelfth
I
Strether couldn't have said he had during the previous hours
definitely expected it; yet when. later on, that morning--though
no later indeed than for his coming forth at ten o'clock--he saw
the concierge produce, on his approach, a petit bleu delivered
since his letters had been sent up, he recognised the appearance as
the first symptom of a sequel.
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