x at the
Francais had been lent her for the following night; it seeming on such
occasions not the least of her merits that she was subject to such
approaches. The sense of how she was always paying for something in
advance was equalled on Strether's part only by the sense of how she
was always being paid; all of which made for his consciousness, in the
larger air, of a lively bustling traffic, the exchange of such values
as were not for him to handle. She hated, he knew, at the French play,
anything but a box--just as she hated at the English anything but a
stall; and a box was what he was already in this phase girding himself
to press upon her. But she had for that matter her community with
little Bilham: she too always, on the great issues, showed as having
known in time. It made her constantly beforehand with him and gave him
mainly the chance to ask himself how on the day of their settlement
their account would stand. He endeavoured even now to keep it a little
straight by arranging that if he accepted her invitation she should
dine with him first; but the upshot of this scruple was that at eight
o'clock on the morrow he awaited her with Waymarsh under the pillared
portico. She hadn't dined with him, and it was characteristic of their
relation that she had made him embrace her refusal without in the least
understanding it. She ever caused her rearrangements to affect him as
her tenderest touches. It was on that principle for instance that,
giving him the opportunity to be amiable again to little Bilham, she
had suggested his offering the young man a seat in their box. Strether
had dispatched for this purpose a small blue missive to the Boulevard
Malesherbes, but up to the moment of their passing into the theatre he
had received no response to his message. He held, however, even after
they had been for some time conveniently seated, that their friend, who
knew his way about, would come in at his own right moment. His
temporary absence moreover seemed, as never yet, to make the right
moment for Miss Gostrey. Strether had been waiting till tonight to get
back from her in some mirrored form her impressions and conclusions.
She had elected, as they said, to see little Bilham once; but now she
had seen him twice and had nevertheless not said more than a word.

Waymarsh meanwhile sat opposite him with their hostess between; and
Miss Gostrey spoke of herself as an instructor of youth introducing her
little charge