"You needn't tell me, you needn't tell
me!"--this again as they proceeded, he wished to make Strether
feel. What he needn't tell him was now at last, in the geniality
of separation, anything at all it concerned him to know. He knew,
up to the hilt--that really came over Chad; he understood, felt,
recorded his vow; and they lingered on it as they had lingered in
their walk to Strether's hotel the night of their first meeting.
The latter took, at this hour, all he could get; he had given all
he had had to give; he was as depleted as if he had spent his last
sou. But there was just one thing for which, before they broke
off, Chad seemed disposed slightly to bargain. His companion needn't,
as he said, tell him, but he might himself mention that he had been
getting some news of the art of advertisement. He came out quite
suddenly with this announcement while Strether wondered if his revived
interest were what had taken him, with strange inconsequence, over
to London. He appeared at all events to have been looking into the
question and had encountered a revelation. Advertising scientifically
worked presented itself thus as the great new force. "It really
does the thing, you know."
They were face to face under the street-lamp as they had been the
first night, and Strether, no doubt, looked blank.
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