that--what can I do more than tell her
everything?" To persuade himself that he did tell her, had told her,
everything, he used to try to think of particular things he hadn't told
her. When at rare moments and in the watches of the night he pounced
on one it generally showed itself to be--to a deeper scrutiny--not
quite truly of the essence. When anything new struck him as coming up,
or anything already noted as reappearing, he always immediately wrote,
as if for fear that if he didn't he would miss something; and also that
he might be able to say to himself from time to time "She knows it
NOW--even while I worry." It was a great comfort to him in general not
to have left past things to be dragged to light and explained; not to
have to produce at so late a stage anything not produced, or anything
even veiled and attenuated, at the moment. She knew it now: that was
what he said to himself to-night in relation to the fresh fact of
Chad's acquaintance with the two ladies--not to speak of the fresher
one of his own. Mrs. Newsome knew in other words that very night at
Woollett that he himself knew Madame de Vionnet and that he had
conscientiously been to see her; also that he had found her remarkably
attractive and that there would probably be a good deal more to tell.
But she further knew, or would know very soon, that, again
conscientiously, he hadn't repeated his visit; and that when Chad had
asked him on the Countess's behalf--Strether made her out vividly, with
a thought at the back of his head, a Countess--if he wouldn't name a
day for dining with her, he had replied lucidly: "Thank you very
much--impossible." He had begged the young man would present his
excuses and had trusted him to understand that it couldn't really
strike one as quite the straight thing. He hadn't reported to Mrs.
Newsome that he had promised to "save" Madame de Vionnet; but, so far
as he was concerned with that reminiscence, he hadn't at any rate
promised to haunt her house. What Chad had understood could only, in
truth, be inferred from Chad's behaviour, which had been in this
connexion as easy as in every other. He was easy, always, when he
understood; he was easier still, if possible, when he didn't; he had
replied that he would make it all right; and he had proceeded to do
this by substituting the present occasion--as he was ready to
substitute others--for any, for every occasion as to which his old
friend should have a funny scrupl