nally carried away from
Woollett. Strether found a certain freedom on his own side in defining
it as that of a man of the world--a formula that indeed seemed to come
now in some degree to his relief; that of a man to whom things had
happened and were variously known. In gleams, in glances, the past did
perhaps peep out of it; but such lights were faint and instantly
merged. Chad was brown and thick and strong, and of old Chad had been
rough. Was all the difference therefore that he was actually smooth?
Possibly; for that he WAS smooth was as marked as in the taste of a
sauce or in the rub of a hand. The effect of it was general--it had
retouched his features, drawn them with a cleaner line. It had cleared
his eyes and settled his colour and polished his fine square teeth--the
main ornament of his face; and at the same time that it had given him a
form and a surface, almost a design, it had toned his voice,
established his accent, encouraged his smile to more play and his other
motions to less. He had formerly, with a great deal of action,
expressed very little; and he now expressed whatever was necessary with
almost none at all. It was as if in short he had really, copious
perhaps but shapeless, been put into a firm mould and turned
successfully out. The phenomenon--Strether kept eyeing it as a
phenomenon, an eminent case--was marked enough to be touched by the
finger. He finally put his hand across the table and laid it on Chad's
arm. "If you'll promise me--here on the spot and giving me your word of
honour--to break straight off, you'll make the future the real right
thing for all of us alike. You'll ease off the strain of this decent
but none the less acute suspense in which I've for so many days been
waiting for you, and let me turn in to rest. I shall leave you with my
blessing and go to bed in peace."

Chad again fell back at this and, his hands pocketed, settled himself a
little; in which posture he looked, though he rather anxiously smiled,
only the more earnest. Then Strether seemed to see that he was really
nervous, and he took that as what he would have called a wholesome
sign. The only mark of it hitherto had been his more than once taking
off and putting on his wide-brimmed crush hat. He had at this moment
made the motion again to remove it, then had only pushed it back, so
that it hung informally on his strong young grizzled crop. It was a
touch that gave the note of the familiar--the intima