ht, fragrance, sound, the
overflow of hospitality meeting the high tide of response, had all from
the first pressed upon Strether's consciousness, and he felt himself
somehow part and parcel of the most festive scene, as the term was, in
which he had ever in his life been engaged. He had perhaps seen, on
Fourths of July and on dear old domestic Commencements, more people
assembled, but he had never seen so many in proportion to the space, or
had at all events never known so great a promiscuity to show so
markedly as picked. Numerous as was the company, it had still been made
so by selection, and what was above all rare for Strether was that, by
no fault of his own, he was in the secret of the principle that had
worked. He hadn't enquired, he had averted his head, but Chad had put
him a pair of questions that themselves smoothed the ground. He hadn't
answered the questions, he had replied that they were the young man's
own affair; and he had then seen perfectly that the latter's direction
was already settled.

Chad had applied for counsel only by way of intimating that he knew
what to do; and he had clearly never known it better than in now
presenting to his sister the whole circle of his society. This was all
in the sense and the spirit of the note struck by him on that lady's
arrival; he had taken at the station itself a line that led him without
a break, and that enabled him to lead the Pococks--though dazed a
little, no doubt, breathless, no doubt, and bewildered--to the
uttermost end of the passage accepted by them perforce as pleasant. He
had made it for them violently pleasant and mercilessly full; the
upshot of which was, to Strether's vision, that they had come all the
way without discovering it to be really no passage at all. It was a
brave blind alley, where to pass was impossible and where, unless they
stuck fast, they would have--which was always awkward--publicly to back
out. They were touching bottom assuredly tonight; the whole scene
represented the terminus of the cul-de-sac. So could things go when
there was a hand to keep them consistent--a hand that pulled the wire
with a skill at which the elder man more and more marvelled. The elder
man felt responsible, but he also felt successful, since what had taken
place was simply the issue of his own contention, six weeks before,
that they properly should wait to see what their friends would have
really to say. He had determined Chad to wait, he had