 most improbable shade. That was part of the amusement - as if to
show that the fun was harmless; just as it was enough, further, that the picture
and the play seemed supremely to melt together in the good woman's broad sketch
of what she could do for her visitor's appetite. He felt in short a confidence,
and it was general, and it was all he wanted to feel. It suffered no shock even
on her mentioning that she had in fact just laid the cloth for two persons who,
unlike Monsieur, had arrived by the river - in a boat of their own; who had
asked her, half an hour before, what she could do for them, and had then paddled
away to look at something a little further up - from which promenade they would
presently return. Monsieur might meanwhile, if he liked, pass into the garden,
such as it was, where she would serve him, should he wish it - for there were
tables and benches in plenty - a bitter before his repast. Here she would also
report to him on the possibility of a conveyance to his station, and here at any
rate he would have the agrément of the river.
    It may be mentioned without delay that Monsieur had the agrément of
everything, and in particular, for the next twenty minutes, of a small and
primitive pavilion that, at the garden's edge, almost overhung the water,
testifying, in its somewhat battered state, to much fond frequentation. It
consisted of little more than a platform, slightly raised, with a couple of
benches and a table, a protecting rail and a projecting roof; but it raked the
full grey-blue stream, which, taking a turn a short distance above, passed out
of sight to reappear much higher up; and it was clearly in esteemed requisition
for Sundays and other feasts. Strether sat there and, though hungry, felt at
peace; the confidence that had so gathered for him deepened with the lap of the
water, the ripple of the surface, the rustle of the reeds on the opposite bank,
the faint diffused coolness and the slight rock of a couple of small boats
attached to a rough landing-place hard by. The valley on the further side was
all copper-green level and glazed pearly sky, a sky hatched across with screens
of trimmed trees, which looked flat, like espaliers; and though the rest of the
village straggled away in the near quarter the view had an emptiness that made
one of the boats suggestive. Such a river set one afloat almost before one could
