 getting up early for adventures
could indeed in no manner be fastened on him. It came to him in fact that just
here was his usual case: he was for ever missing things through his general
genius for missing them, while others were for ever picking them up through a
contrary bent. And it was others who looked abstemious and he who looked greedy;
it was he somehow who finally paid, and it was others who mainly partook. Yes,
he should go to the scaffold yet for he wouldn't know quite whom. He almost, for
that matter, felt on the scaffold now and really quite enjoying it. It worked
out as because he was anxious there - it worked out as for this reason that
Waymarsh was so blooming. It was his trip for health, for a change, that proved
the success - which was just what Strether, planning and exerting himself, had
desired it should be. That truth already sat full-blown on his companion's lips;
benevolence breathed from them as with the warmth of active exercise, and also a
little as with the bustle of haste.
    »Mrs. Pocock, whom I left a quarter of an hour ago at her hotel, has asked
me to mention to you that she would like to find you at home here in about
another hour. She wants to see you; she has something to say - or considers, I
believe, that you may have: so that I asked her myself why she shouldn't come
right round. She hasn't been round yet - to see our place; and I took upon
myself to say that I was sure you'd be glad to have her. The thing's therefore,
you see, to keep right here till she comes.«
    The announcement was sociably, even though, after Waymarsh's wont, somewhat
solemnly made; but Strether quickly felt other things in it than these light
features. It was the first approach, from that quarter, to admitted
consciousness; it quickened his pulse; it simply meant at last that he should
have but himself to thank if he didn't know where he was. He had finished his
breakfast; he pushed it away and was on his feet. There were plenty of elements
of surprise, but only one of doubt. »The thing's for you to keep here too?«
Waymarsh had been slightly ambiguous.
    He wasn't ambiguous, however, after this enquiry; and Strether's
understanding had probably never before opened so wide and effective a mouth as
it was to open during the
