Strether, at his glass, finished dressing; consulting that witness
moreover on this last opinion. WAS he looking preternaturally fit?
There was something in it perhaps for Chad's wonderful eye, but he had
felt himself for hours rather in pieces. Such a judgement, however,
was after all but a contribution to his resolve; it testified
unwittingly to his wisdom. He was still firmer, apparently--since it
shone in him as a light--than he had flattered himself. His firmness
indeed was slightly compromised, as he faced about to his friend, by
the way this very personage looked--though the case would of course
have been worse hadn't the secret of personal magnificence been at
every hour Chad's unfailing possession. There he was in all the
pleasant morning freshness of it--strong and sleek and gay, easy and
fragrant and fathomless, with happy health in his colour, and pleasant
silver in his thick young hair, and the right word for everything on
the lips that his clear brownness caused to show as red. He had never
struck Strether as personally such a success; it was as if now, for his
definite surrender, he had gathered himself vividly together. This,
sharply and rather strangely, was the form in which he was to be
presented to Woollett. Our friend took him in again--he was always
taking him in and yet finding that parts of him still remained out;
though even thus his image showed through a mist of other things. "I've
had a cable," Strether said, "from your mother."

"I dare say, my dear man. I hope she's well."

Strether hesitated. "No--she's not well, I'm sorry to have to tell
you."

"Ah," said Chad, "I must have had the instinct of it. All the more
reason then that we should start straight off."

Strether had now got together hat, gloves and stick, but Chad had
dropped on the sofa as if to show where he wished to make his point. He
kept observing his companion's things; he might have been judging how
quickly they could be packed. He might even have wished to hint that
he'd send his own servant to assist. "What do you mean," Strether
enquired, "by 'straight off'?"

"Oh by one of next week's boats. Everything at this season goes out so
light that berths will be easy anywhere."

Strether had in his hand his telegram, which he had kept there after
attaching his watch, and he now offered it to Chad, who, however, with
an odd movement, declined to take it. "Thanks, I'd rather not. Your
correspondence with Moth