massive young manhood, as such a link in the chain as might practically
amount to a kind of demonstration. It was as if--and how but
anomalously?--he couldn't after all help thinking sufficiently well of
these things to let them go for what they were worth. What could there
be in this for Strether but the hint of some self-respect, some sense
of power, oddly perverted; something latent and beyond access, ominous
and perhaps enviable? The intimation had the next thing, in a flash,
taken on a name--a name on which our friend seized as he asked himself
if he weren't perhaps really dealing with an irreducible young Pagan.
This description--he quite jumped at it--had a sound that gratified his
mental ear, so that of a sudden he had already adopted it. Pagan--yes,
that was, wasn't it? what Chad WOULD logically be. It was what he
must be. It was what he was. The idea was a clue and, instead of
darkening the prospect, projected a certain clearness. Strether made
out in this quick ray that a Pagan was perhaps, at the pass they had
come to, the thing most wanted at Woollett. They'd be able to do with
one--a good one; he'd find an opening--yes; and Strether's imagination
even now prefigured and accompanied the first appearance there of the
rousing personage. He had only the slight discomfort of feeling, as the
young man turned away from the lamp, that his thought had in the
momentary silence possibly been guessed. "Well, I've no doubt," said
Chad, "you've come near enough. The details, as you say, don't matter.
It HAS been generally the case that I've let myself go. But I'm coming
round--I'm not so bad now." With which they walked on again to
Strether's hotel.

"Do you mean," the latter asked as they approached the door, "that
there isn't any woman with you now?"

"But pray what has that to do with it?"

"Why it's the whole question."

"Of my going home?" Chad was clearly surprised. "Oh not much! Do you
think that when I want to go any one will have any power--"

"To keep you"--Strether took him straight up--"from carrying out your
wish? Well, our idea has been that somebody has hitherto--or a good
many persons perhaps--kept you pretty well from 'wanting.' That's
what--if you're in anybody's hands--may again happen. You don't answer
my question"--he kept it up; "but if you aren't in anybody's hands so
much the better. There's nothing then but what makes for your going."

Chad turned this over. "I don't answe