n quite to consecrate his reluctance to pry; something in the very
air of Chad's silence--judged in the light of that talk--offered it to
him as a reserve he could markedly match. It shrouded them about with
he scarce knew what, a consideration, a distinction; he was in presence
at any rate--so far as it placed him there--of ladies; and the one
thing that was definite for him was that they themselves should be, to
the extent of his responsibility, in presence of a gentleman. Was it
because they were very beautiful, very clever, or even very good--was
it for one of these reasons that Chad was, so to speak, nursing his
effect? Did he wish to spring them, in the Woollett phrase, with a
fuller force--to confound his critic, slight though as yet the
criticism, with some form of merit exquisitely incalculable? The most
the critic had at all events asked was whether the persons in question
were French; and that enquiry had been but a proper comment on the
sound of their name. "Yes. That is no!" had been Chad's reply; but he
had immediately added that their English was the most charming in the
world, so that if Strether were wanting an excuse for not getting on
with them he wouldn't in the least find one. Never in fact had
Strether--in the mood into which the place had quickly launched
him--felt, for himself, less the need of an excuse. Those he might
have found would have been, at the worst, all for the others, the
people before him, in whose liberty to be as they were he was aware
that he positively rejoiced. His fellow guests were multiplying, and
these things, their liberty, their intensity, their variety, their
conditions at large, were in fusion in the admirable medium of the
scene.

The place itself was a great impression--a small pavilion, clear-faced
and sequestered, an effect of polished parquet, of fine white panel and
spare sallow gilt, of decoration delicate and rare, in the heart of the
Faubourg Saint-Germain and on the edge of a cluster of gardens attached
to old noble houses. Far back from streets and unsuspected by crowds,
reached by a long passage and a quiet court, it was as striking to the
unprepared mind, he immediately saw, as a treasure dug up; giving him
too, more than anything yet, the note of the range of the immeasurable
town and sweeping away, as by a last brave brush, his usual landmarks
and terms. It was in the garden, a spacious cherished remnant, out of
which a dozen persons had already