mpulses, the feeder of his stream. Their talk had
accordingly not lasted three minutes without Strether's feeling basis
enough for the excitement in which he had waited. This overflow fairly
deepened, wastefully abounded, as he observed the smallness of anything
corresponding to it on the part of his friend. That was exactly this
friend's happy case; he "put out" his excitement, or whatever other
emotion the matter involved, as he put out his washing; than which no
arrangement could make more for domestic order. It was quite for
Strether himself in short to feel a personal analogy with the laundress
bringing home the triumphs of the mangle.

When he had reported on Sarah's visit, which he did very fully, Chad
answered his question with perfect candour. "I positively referred her
to you--told her she must absolutely see you. This was last night, and
it all took place in ten minutes. It was our first free talk--really
the first time she had tackled me. She knew I also knew what her line
had been with yourself; knew moreover how little you had been doing to
make anything difficult for her. So I spoke for you frankly--assured
her you were all at her service. I assured her I was too," the young
man continued; "and I pointed out how she could perfectly, at any time,
have got at me. Her difficulty has been simply her not finding the
moment she fancied."

"Her difficulty," Strether returned, "has been simply that she finds
she's afraid of you. She's not afraid of ME, Sarah, one little scrap;
and it was just because she has seen how I can fidget when I give my
mind to it that she has felt her best chance, rightly enough to be in
making me as uneasy as possible. I think she's at bottom as pleased to
HAVE you put it on me as you yourself can possibly be to put it."

"But what in the world, my dear man," Chad enquired in objection to
this luminosity, "have I done to make Sally afraid?"

"You've been 'wonderful, wonderful,' as we say--we poor people who
watch the play from the pit; and that's what has, admirably, made her.
Made her all the more effectually that she could see you didn't set
about it on purpose--I mean set about affecting her as with fear."

Chad cast a pleasant backward glance over his possibilities of motive.
"I've only wanted to be kind and friendly, to be decent and
attentive--and I still only want to be."

Strether smiled at his comfortable clearness. "Well, there can
certainly be no way for it