 itself named, and when once that had
happened they were quite at the centre of their situation. One thing had really
done as well as another; when Strether had spoken of Waymarsh's leaving him, and
that had necessarily brought on a reference to Mrs. Pocock's similar intention,
the jump was but short to supreme lucidity. Light became indeed after that so
intense that Strether would doubtless have but half made out, in the prodigious
glare, by which of the two the issue had been in fact precipitated. It was, in
their contracted quarters, as much there between them as if it had been
something suddenly spilled with a crash and a splash on the floor. The form of
his submission was to be an engagement to acquit himself within the twenty-four
hours. »He'll go in a moment if you give him the word - he assures me on his
honour he'll do that«: this came in its order, out of its order, in respect to
Chad, after the crash had occurred. It came repeatedly during the time taken by
Strether to feel that he was even more fixed in his rigour than he had supposed
- the time he was not above adding to a little by telling her that such a way of
putting it on her brother's part left him sufficiently surprised. She wasn't at
all funny at last - she was really fine; and he felt easily where she was strong
- strong for herself. It hadn't yet so come home to him that she was nobly and
appointedly officious. She was acting in interests grander and clearer than that
of her poor little personal, poor little Parisian equilibrium, and all his
consciousness of her mother's moral pressure profited by this proof of its
sustaining force. She would be held up; she would be strengthened; he needn't in
the least be anxious for her. What would once more have been distinct to him had
he tried to make it so was that, as Mrs. Newsome was essentially all moral
pressure, the presence of this element was almost identical with her own
presence. It wasn't perhaps that he felt he was dealing with her straight, but
it was certainly as if she had been dealing straight with him. She was reaching
him somehow by the lengthened arm of the spirit, and he was having to that
extent to take her into account; but he wasn't reaching her in turn, not making
her take him; he was only reaching Sarah, who appeared to take so little of him.
»Something has clearly
