 might - what was at
bottom the matter with her was simply Chad himself. It was of Chad she was after
all renewedly afraid; the strange strength of her passion was the very strength
of her fear; she clung to him, Lambert Strether, as to a source of safety she
had tested, and, generous graceful truthful as she might try to be, exquisite as
she was, she dreaded the term of his being within reach. With this sharpest
perception yet, it was like a chill in the air to him, it was almost appalling,
that a creature so fine could be, by mysterious forces, a creature so exploited.
For at the end of all things they were mysterious: she had but made Chad what he
was - so why could she think she had made him infinite? She had made him better,
she had made him best, she had made him anything one would; but it came to our
friend with supreme queerness that he was none the less only Chad. Strether had
the sense that he, a little, had made him too; his high appreciation had, at it
were, consecrated her work. The work, however admirable, was nevertheless of the
strict human order, and in short it was marvellous that the companion of mere
earthly joys, of comforts, aberrations (however one classed them) within the
common experience, should be so transcendently prized. It might have made
Strether hot or shy, as such secrets of others brought home sometimes do make
us; but he was held there by something so hard that it was fairly grim. This was
not the discomposure of last night; that had quite passed - such discomposures
were a detail; the real coercion was to see a man ineffably adored. There it was
again - it took women, it took women; if to deal with them was to walk on water
what wonder that the water rose? And it had never surely risen higher than round
this woman. He presently found himself taking a long look from her, and the next
thing he knew he had uttered all his thought. »You're afraid for your life!«
    It drew out her long look, and he soon enough saw why. A spasm came into her
face, the tears she had already been unable to hide overflowed at first in
silence, and then, as the sound suddenly comes from a child, quickened to gasps,
to sobs. She sat and covered her face with her hands, giving up all attempt at a
manner. »It's how you see me, it's how you
