It might have made Strether
hot or shy, as such secrets of others brought home sometimes do
make us; but he was held there by something so hard that it was
fairly grim. This was not the discomposure of last night; that had
quite passed--such discomposures were a detail; the real coercion
was to see a man ineffably adored. There it was again--it took
women, it took women; if to deal with them was to walk on water
what wonder that the water rose? And it had never surely risen
higher than round this woman. He presently found himself taking a
long look from her, and the next thing he knew he had uttered all
his thought. "You're afraid for your life!"
It drew out her long look, and he soon enough saw why. A spasm
came into her face, the tears she had already been unable to hide
overflowed at first in silence, and then, as the sound suddenly
comes from a child, quickened to gasps, to sobs. She sat and
covered her face with her hands, giving up all attempt at a manner.
"It's how you see me, it's how you see me"--she caught her breath
with it--"and it's as I AM, and as I must take myself, and of
course it's no matter." Her emotion was at first so incoherent that
he could only stand there at a loss, stand with his sense of having
upset her, though of having done it by the truth.
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