For freedom."

"But what has freedom to do with it?"

Strether's answer was indirect. "To be as good as you and me. But
different."

She had had time to take in their companion's face; and with it, as
such things were easy for her, she took in all. "Different--yes. But
better!"

If Waymarsh was sombre he was also indeed almost sublime. He told them
nothing, left his absence unexplained, and though they were convinced
he had made some extraordinary purchase they were never to learn its
nature. He only glowered grandly at the tops of the old gables. "It's
the sacred rage," Strether had had further time to say; and this sacred
rage was to become between them, for convenient comprehension, the
description of one of his periodical necessities. It was Strether who
eventually contended that it did make him better than they. But by
that time Miss Gostrey was convinced that she didn't want to be better
than Strether.

Book Second

I

Those occasions on which Strether was, in association with the exile
from Milrose, to see the sacred rage glimmer through would doubtless
have their due periodicity; but our friend had meanwhile to find names
for many other matters. On no evening of his life perhaps, as he
reflected, had he had to supply so many as on the third of his short
stay in London; an evening spent by Miss Gostrey's side at one of the
theatres, to which he had found himself transported, without his own
hand raised, on the mere expression of a conscientious wonder. She
knew her theatre, she knew her play, as she had triumphantly known,
three days running, everything else, and the moment filled to the brim,
for her companion, that apprehension of the interesting which, whether
or no the interesting happened to filter through his guide, strained
now to its limits his brief opportunity. Waymarsh hadn't come with
them; he had seen plays enough, he signified, before Strether had
joined him--an affirmation that had its full force when his friend
ascertained by questions that he had seen two and a circus. Questions
as to what he had seen had on him indeed an effect only less favourable
than questions as to what he hadn't. He liked the former to be
discriminated; but how could it be done, Strether asked of their
constant counsellor, without discriminating the latter?

Miss Gostrey had dined with him at his hotel, face to face over a small
table on which the lighted candles had rose-coloured shad