 his
friend could read, though he seemed to look almost carefully at nothing in
particular.
    »Then for himself?«
    »For nobody. For nothing. For freedom.«
    »But what has freedom to do with it?«
    Strether's answer was indirect. »To be as good as you and me. But
different.«
    She had had time to take in their companion's face; and with it, as such
things were easy for her, she took in all. »Different - yes. But better!«
    If Waymarsh was sombre he was also indeed almost sublime. He told them
nothing, left his absence unexplained, and though they were convinced he had
made some extraordinary purchase they were never to learn its nature. He only
glowered grandly at the tops of the old gables. »It's the sacred rage,« Strether
had had further time to say; and this sacred rage was to become between them,
for convenient comprehension, the description of one of his periodical
necessities. It was Strether who eventually contended that it did make him
better than they. But by that time Miss Gostrey was convinced that she didn't
want to be better than Strether.
 

                                  Book Second

                                       I

Those occasions on which Strether was, in association with the exile from
Milrose, to see the sacred rage glimmer through would doubtless have their due
periodicity; but our friend had meanwhile to find names for many other matters.
On no evening of his life perhaps, as he reflected, had he had to supply so many
as on the third of his short stay in London; an evening spent by Miss Gostrey's
side at one of the theatres, to which he had found himself transported, without
his own hand raised, on the mere expression of a conscientious wonder. She knew
her theatre, she knew her play, as she had triumphantly known, three days
running, everything else, and the moment filled to the brim, for her companion,
that apprehension of the interesting which, whether or no the interesting
happened to filter through his guide, strained now to its limits his brief
opportunity. Waymarsh hadn't come with them; he had seen plays enough, he
signified, before Strether had joined him - an affirmation that had its full
force when his friend ascertained by questions that he had seen two and a
circus. Questions as to what he had seen had on him indeed an effect only less
favourable than questions as to what he hadn't. He liked the former to be
discriminated; but how could it be done, Strether asked of their constant
counsellor
