
of it to no one and quite aware he couldn't have spoken without appearing to
talk nonsense. Was what it had told him or what it had asked him the greater of
the mysteries? Was it the most special flare, unequalled, supreme, of the
æsthetic torch, lighting that wondrous world for ever, or was it above all the
long straight shaft sunk by a personal acuteness that life had seasoned to
steel? Nothing on earth could have been stranger and no one doubtless more
surprised than the artist himself, but it was for all the world to Strether just
then as if in the matter of his accepted duty he had positively been on trial.
The deep human expertness in Gloriani's charming smile - oh the terrible life
behind it! - was flashed upon him as a test of his stuff.
    Chad meanwhile, after having easily named his companion, had still more
easily turned away and was already greeting other persons present. He was as
easy, clever Chad, with the great artist as with his obscure compatriot, and as
easy with every one else as with either: this fell into its place for Strether
and made almost a new light, giving him, as a concatenation, something more he
could enjoy. He liked Gloriani, but should never see him again; of that he was
sufficiently sure. Chad accordingly, who was wonderful with both of them, was a
kind of link for hopeless fancy, an implication of possibilities - oh if
everything had been different! Strether noted at all events that he was thus on
terms with illustrious spirits, and also that - yes, distinctly - he hadn't in
the least swaggered about it. Our friend hadn't come there only for this figure
of Abel Newsome's son, but that presence threatened to affect the observant mind
as positively central. Gloriani indeed, remembering something and excusing
himself, pursued Chad to speak to him, and Strether was left musing on many
things. One of them was the question of whether, since he had been tested, he
had passed. Did the artist drop him from having made out that he wouldn't do? He
really felt just to-day that he might do better than usual. Hadn't he done well
enough, so far as that went, in being exactly so dazzled? and in not having too,
as he almost believed, wholly hidden from his host that he felt the latter's
plummet? Suddenly, across the garden, he saw little Bilham approach, and it was
a part of the fit that was on him that as their eyes
