It gave his companion a moment's thought.
"And she's sure Mrs. Pocock WILL—?"
"No, I say that for you.
She likes your liking her; it's so much, as it were," Chad laughed, "to the good.
However, she doesn't despair of Sarah either, and is prepared, on her own side, to go all lengths."
"In the way of appreciation?"
"Yes, and of everything else.
In the way of general amiability, hospitality and welcome.
She's under arms," Chad laughed again; "she's prepared."
Strether took it in; then as if an echo of Miss Barrace were in the air:
"She's wonderful."
"You don't begin to know HOW wonderful!"
There was a depth in it, to Strether's ear, of confirmed luxury—almost a kind of unconscious insolence of proprietorship; but the effect of the glimpse was not at this moment to foster speculation: there was something so conclusive in so much graceful and generous assurance.
It was in fact a fresh evocation; and the evocation had before many minutes another consequence.
"Well, I shall see her oftener now.
I shall see her as much as I like—by your leave; which is what I hitherto haven't done." "It has been," said Chad, but without reproach, "only your own fault.
I tried to bring you together, and SHE, my dear fellow—I never saw her more charming to any man.
But you've got your extraordinary ideas."
"Well, I DID have," Strether murmured, while he felt both how they had possessed him and how they had now lost their authority.
He couldn't have traced the sequence to the end, but it was all because of Mrs. Pocock.
Mrs. Pocock might be because of Mrs. Newsome, but that was still to be proved.
What came over him was the sense of having stupidly failed to profit where profit would have been precious.
It had been open to him to see so much more of her, and he had but let the good days pass.
Fierce in him almost was the resolve to lose no more of them, and he whimsically reflected, while at Chad's side he drew nearer to his destination, that it was after all Sarah who would have quickened his chance.
What her visit of inquisition might achieve in other directions was as yet all obscure—only not obscure that it would do supremely much to bring two earnest persons together.
He had but to listen to Chad at this moment to feel it; for Chad was in the act of remarking to him that they of course both counted on him—he himself and the other earnest person—for cheer and support.
It was brave to Strether to hear him talk as if the line of wisdom they had struck out was to make things ravishing to the Pococks. No, if Madame de Vionnet compassed THAT, compassed the ravishment of the Pococks, Madame de Vionnet would be prodigious.
It would be a beautiful plan if it succeeded, and it all came to the question of Sarah's being really bribeable.
The precedent of his own case helped Strether perhaps but little to consider she might prove so; it being distinct that her character would rather make for every possible difference.
This idea of his own bribeability set him apart for himself; with the further mark in fact that his case was absolutely proved.
He liked always, where Lambert Strether was concerned, to know the worst, and what he now seemed to know was not only that he was bribeable, but that he had been effectually bribed.
The only difficulty was that he couldn't quite have said with what.
It was as if he had sold himself, but hadn't somehow got the cash.
That, however, was what, characteristically, WOULD happen to him.
It would naturally be his kind of traffic.
While he thought of these things he reminded Chad of the truth they mustn't lose sight of—the truth that, with all deference to her susceptibility to new interests, Sarah would have come out with a high firm definite purpose.
"She hasn't come out, you know, to be bamboozled.
We may all be ravishing—nothing perhaps can be more easy for us; but she hasn't come out to be ravished.
She has come out just simply to take you home."
"Oh well, with HER I'll go," said Chad good-humouredly.
"I suppose you'll allow THAT."
And then as for a minute Strether said nothing: "Or is your idea that when I've seen her I shan't want to go?"
As this question, however, again left his friend silent he presently went on: "My own idea at any rate is that they shall have while they're here the best sort of time."
It was at this that Strether spoke.
"Ah there you are!
I think if you really wanted to go—!"
"Well?" said Chad to bring it out.
"Well, you wouldn't trouble about our good time.
You wouldn't care what sort of a time we have."
Chad could always take in the easiest way in the world any ingenious suggestion.