he himself probably should be able
to make none at all.

He was never in the morning very late, but Waymarsh had already been
out, and, after a peep into the dim refectory, he presented himself
with much less than usual of his large looseness. He had made sure,
through the expanse of glass exposed to the court, that they would be
alone; and there was now in fact that about him that pretty well took
up the room. He was dressed in the garments of summer; and save that
his white waistcoat was redundant and bulging these things favoured,
they determined, his expression. He wore a straw hat such as his
friend hadn't yet seen in Paris, and he showed a buttonhole freshly
adorned with a magnificent rose. Strether read on the instant his
story--how, astir for the previous hour, the sprinkled newness of the
day, so pleasant at that season in Paris, he was fairly panting with
the pulse of adventure and had been with Mrs. Pocock, unmistakeably, to
the Marche aux Fleurs. Strether really knew in this vision of him a joy
that was akin to envy; so reversed as he stood there did their old
positions seem; so comparatively doleful now showed, by the sharp turn
of the wheel, the posture of the pilgrim from Woollett. He wondered,
this pilgrim, if he had originally looked to Waymarsh so brave and
well, so remarkably launched, as it was at present the latter's
privilege to appear. He recalled that his friend had remarked to him
even at Chester that his aspect belied his plea of prostration; but
there certainly couldn't have been, for an issue, an aspect less
concerned than Waymarsh's with the menace of decay. Strether had at
any rate never resembled a Southern planter of the great days--which
was the image picturesquely suggested by the happy relation between the
fuliginous face and the wide panama of his visitor. This type, it
further amused him to guess, had been, on Waymarsh's part, the object
of Sarah's care; he was convinced that her taste had not been a
stranger to the conception and purchase of the hat, any more than her
fine fingers had been guiltless of the bestowal of the rose. It came
to him in the current of thought, as things so oddly did come, that HE
had never risen with the lark to attend a brilliant woman to the Marche
aux Fleurs; this could be fastened on him in connexion neither with
Miss Gostrey nor with Madame de Vionnet; the practice of getting up
early for adventures could indeed in no manner be fastened on him.