What was at bottom the matter
with her, embroider as she might and disclaim as she might--
what was at bottom the matter with her was simply Chad himself.
It was of Chad she was after all renewedly afraid; the strange
strength of her passion was the very strength of her fear; she clung
to HIM, Lambert Strether, as to a source of safety she had tested,
and, generous graceful truthful as she might try to be, exquisite
as she was, she dreaded the term of his being within reach.
With this sharpest perception yet, it was like a chill in the air
to him, it was almost appalling, that a creature so fine could be,
by mysterious forces, a creature so exploited. For at the end
of all things they WERE mysterious: she had but made Chad what
he was--so why could she think she had made him infinite?
She had made him better, she had made him best, she had made him
anything one would; but it came to our friend with supreme
queerness that he was none the less only Chad. Strether had the
sense that HE, a little, had made him too; his high appreciation
had as it were, consecrated her work The work, however admirable,
was nevertheless of the strict human order, and in short it was
marvellous that the companion of mere earthly joys, of comforts,
aberrations (however one classed them) within the common experience
should be so transcendently prized.
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