ays later, he felt
himself present at the collapse of the question of Jeanne de Vionnet's
shy secret. He had been dining there in the company of that young lady
and her mother, as well as of other persons, and he had gone into the
petit salon, at Chad's request, on purpose to talk with her. The young
man had put this to him as a favour--"I should like so awfully to know
what you think of her. It will really be a chance for you," he had
said, "to see the jeune fille--I mean the type--as she actually is, and
I don't think that, as an observer of manners, it's a thing you ought
to miss. It will be an impression that--whatever else you take--you
can carry home with you, where you'll find again so much to compare it
with."

Strether knew well enough with what Chad wished him to compare it, and
though he entirely assented he hadn't yet somehow been so deeply
reminded that he was being, as he constantly though mutely expressed
it, used. He was as far as ever from making out exactly to what end;
but he was none the less constantly accompanied by a sense of the
service he rendered. He conceived only that this service was highly
agreeable to those who profited by it; and he was indeed still waiting
for the moment at which he should catch it in the act of proving
disagreeable, proving in some degree intolerable, to himself. He
failed quite to see how his situation could clear up at all logically
except by some turn of events that would give him the pretext of
disgust. He was building from day to day on the possibility of
disgust, but each day brought forth meanwhile a new and more engaging
bend of the road. That possibility was now ever so much further from
sight than on the eve of his arrival, and he perfectly felt that,
should it come at all, it would have to be at best inconsequent and
violent. He struck himself as a little nearer to it only when he asked
himself what service, in such a life of utility, he was after all
rendering Mrs. Newsome. When he wished to help himself to believe that
he was still all right he reflected--and in fact with wonder--on the
unimpaired frequency of their correspondence; in relation to which what
was after all more natural than that it should become more frequent
just in proportion as their problem became more complicated?

Certain it is at any rate that he now often brought himself balm by the
question, with the rich consciousness of yesterday's letter, "Well,
what can I do more than