- was it for one of these
reasons that Chad was, so to speak, nursing his effect? Did he wish to spring
them, in the Woollett phrase, with a fuller force - to confound his critic,
slight though as yet the criticism, with some form of merit exquisitely
incalculable? The most the critic had at all events asked was whether the
persons in question were French; and that enquiry had been but a proper comment
on the sound of their name. »Yes. That is no!« had been Chad's reply; but he had
immediately added that their English was the most charming in the world, so that
if Strether were wanting an excuse for not getting on with them he wouldn't in
the least find one. Never in fact had Strether - in the mood into which the
place had quickly launched him - felt, for himself, less the need of an excuse.
Those he might have found would have been, at the worst, all for the others, the
people before him, in whose liberty to be as they were he was aware that he
positively rejoiced. His fellow guests were multiplying, and these things, their
liberty, their intensity, their variety, their conditions at large, were in
fusion in the admirable medium of the scene.
    The place itself was a great impression - a small pavilion, clearfaced and
sequestered, an effect of polished parquet, of fine white panel and spare sallow
gilt, of decoration delicate and rare, in the heart of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain and on the edge of a cluster of gardens attached to old noble
houses. Far back from streets and unsuspected by crowds, reached by a long
passage and a quiet court, it was as striking to the unprepared mind, he
immediately saw, as a treasure dug up; giving him too, more than anything yet,
the note of the range of the immeasurable town and sweeping away, as by a last
brave brush, his usual landmarks and terms. It was in the garden, a spacious
cherished remnant, out of which a dozen persons had already passed, that Chad's
host presently met them; while the tall bird-haunted trees, all of a twitter
with the spring and the weather, and the high party-walls, on the other side of
which grave hôtels stood off for privacy, spoke of survival, transmission,
association, a strong indifferent persistent order. The day was so soft that the
little party had practically adjourned to the open air, but the open air was in
such conditions all a chamber of state. Strether had