together; and when
after a few steps and a turn into the Boulevard they had, for their greater
privacy, sat down among twenty others, our friend saw in his companion's move a
fear of the advent of Waymarsh. It was the first time Chad had to that extent
given this personage away; and Strether found himself wondering of what it was
symptomatic. He made out in a moment that the youth was in earnest as he hadn't
yet seen him; which in its turn threw a ray perhaps a trifle startling on what
they had each up to that time been treating as earnestness. It was sufficiently
flattering however that the real thing - if this was at last the real thing -
should have been determined, as appeared, precisely by an accretion of
Strether's importance. For this was what it quickly enough came to - that Chad,
rising with the lark, had rushed down to let him know while his morning
consciousness was yet young that he had literally made the afternoon before a
tremendous impression. Madame de Vionnet wouldn't, couldn't rest till she should
have some assurance from him that he would consent again to see her. The
announcement was made, across their marble-topped table, while the foam of the
hot milk was in their cups and its plash still in the air, with the smile of
Chad's easiest urbanity; and this expression of his face caused our friend's
doubts to gather on the spot into a challenge of the lips. »See here« - that was
all; he only for the moment said again »See here.« Chad met it with all his air
of straight intelligence, while Strether remembered again that fancy of the
first impression of him, the happy young Pagan, handsome and hard but oddly
indulgent, whose mysterious measure he had under the street-lamp tried mentally
to take. The young Pagan, while a long look passed between them, sufficiently
understood. Strether scarce needed at last to say the rest - »I want to know
where I am.« But he said it, adding before any answer something more. »Are you
engaged to be married - is that your secret? - to the young lady?«
    Chad shook his head with the slow amenity that was one of his ways of
conveying that there was time for everything. »I have no secret - though I may
have secrets! I haven't at any rate that one. We're not engaged. No.«
    »Then where's the hitch?«
    »Do you mean why I haven