" On which they fronted each other,
across the table, as if things unuttered were in the air.
Strether seemed, in his way, when he next spoke, to take some of
them up. "It wouldn't give me--that would be the trouble--what it
will, no doubt, still give you. I'm not," he explained, leaning
back in his chair, but with his eyes on a small ripe round melon--
"in real harmony with what surrounds me. You ARE. I take it too hard.
You DON'T. It makes--that's what it comes to in the end--a fool of me."
Then at a tangent, "What has he been doing in London?" he demanded.
"Ah one may go to London," Maria laughed. "You know I did."
Yes--he took the reminder. "And you brought ME back." He brooded
there opposite to her, but without gloom. "Whom has Chad brought?
He's full of ideas. And I wrote to Sarah," he added, "the first
thing this morning. So I'm square. I'm ready for them."
She neglected certain parts of this speech in the interest of
others. "Marie said to me the other day that she felt him to have
the makings of an immense man of business."
"There it is. He's the son of his father!"
"But SUCH a father!"
"Ah just the right one from that point of view! But it isn't his
father in him," Strether added, "that troubles me.
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