"
He was as grave, as distinct, as a demonstrator before a
blackboard, and Chad continued to face him like an intelligent
pupil. "You wanted to have been put through the whole thing."
Strether again, for a moment, said nothing; he turned his eyes
away, and they lost themselves, through the open window, in the
dusky outer air. "I shall learn from the Bank here where they're
now having their letters, and my last word, which I shall write in
the morning and which they're expecting as my ultimatum, will so
immediately reach them." The light of his plural pronoun was
sufficiently reflected in his companion's face as he again met it;
and he completed his demonstration. He pursued indeed as if for
himself. "Of course I've first to justify what I shall do."
"You're justifying it beautifully!" Chad declared.
"It's not a question of advising you not to go," Strether said, "but
of absolutely preventing you, if possible, from so much as thinking
of it. Let me accordingly appeal to you by all you hold sacred."
Chad showed a surprise. "What makes you think me capable--?"
"You'd not only be, as I say, a brute; you'd be," his companion
went on in the same way, "a criminal of the deepest dye."
Chad gave a sharper look, as if to gauge a possible suspicion.
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