 this another thought. »Will
that be - just all through Bilham - the way he's going to work it? It would be,
for him, you know, an idea. And Chad with an idea -!«
    »Well?« she asked while the image held him.
    »Well, is Chad - what shall I say? - monstrous?«
    »Oh as much as you like! But the idea you speak of,« she said, »won't have
been his best. He'll have a better. It won't be all through little Bilham that
he'll work it.«
    This already sounded almost like a hope destroyed. »Through whom else then?«
    »That's what we shall see!« But quite as she spoke she turned, and Strether
turned; for the door of the box had opened, with the click of the ouvreuse, from
the lobby, and a gentleman, a stranger to them, had come in with a quick step.
The door closed behind him, and, though their faces showed him his mistake, his
air, which was striking, was all good confidence. The curtain had just again
arisen, and, in the hush of the general attention, Strether's challenge was
tacit, as was also the greeting, with a quickly-deprecating hand and smile, of
the unannounced visitor. He discreetly signed that he would wait, would stand,
and these things and his face, one look from which she had caught, had suddenly
worked for Miss Gostrey. She fitted to them all an answer for Strether's last
question. The solid stranger was simply the answer - as she now, turning to her
friend, indicated. She brought it straight out for him - it presented the
intruder. »Why, through this gentleman!« The gentleman indeed, at the same time,
though sounding for Strether a very short name, did practically as much to
explain. Strether gasped the name back - then only had he seen. Miss Gostrey had
said more than she knew. They were in presence of Chad himself.
    Our friend was to go over it afterwards again and again - he was going over
it much of the time that they were together, and they were together constantly
for three or four days: the note had been so strongly struck during that first
half-hour that everything happening since was comparatively a minor development.
The fact was that his perception of the young man's identity - so absolutely
checked for a minute - had been quite one of the sensations
