The Ambassadors (34 page)

"I dare say, my dear man. I hope she's well."

Strether hesitated. "No—she's not well, I'm sorry to have to
tell you."

"Ah," said Chad, "I must have had the instinct of it. All the
more reason then that we should start straight off."

Strether had now got together hat, gloves and stick, but Chad
had dropped on the sofa as if to show where he wished to make his
point. He kept observing his companion's things; he might have been
judging how quickly they could be packed. He might even have wished
to hint that he'd send his own servant to assist. "What do you
mean," Strether enquired, "by 'straight off'?"

"Oh by one of next week's boats. Everything at this season goes
out so light that berths will be easy anywhere."

Strether had in his hand his telegram, which he had kept there
after attaching his watch, and he now offered it to Chad, who,
however, with an odd movement, declined to take it. "Thanks, I'd
rather not. Your correspondence with Mother's your own affair. I'm
only WITH you both on it, whatever it is." Strether, at this, while
their eyes met, slowly folded the missive and put it in his pocket;
after which, before he had spoken again, Chad broke fresh ground.
"Has Miss Gostrey come back?"

But when Strether presently spoke it wasn't in answer. "It's
not, I gather, that your mother's physically ill; her health, on
the whole, this spring, seems to have been better than usual. But
she's worried, she's anxious, and it appears to have risen within
the last few days to a climax. We've tired out, between us, her
patience."

"Oh it isn't YOU!" Chad generously protested.

"I beg your pardon—it IS me." Strether was mild and melancholy,
but firm. He saw it far away and over his companion's head. "It's
very particularly me."

"Well then all the more reason. Marchons, marchons!" said the
young man gaily. His host, however, at this, but continued to stand
agaze; and he had the next thing repeated his question of a moment
before. "Has Miss Gostrey come back?"

"Yes, two days ago."

"Then you've seen her?"

"No—I'm to see her to-day." But Strether wouldn't linger now on
Miss Gostrey. "Your mother sends me an ultimatum. If I can't bring
you I'm to leave you; I'm to come at any rate myself."

"Ah but you CAN bring me now," Chad, from his sofa, reassuringly
replied.

Strether had a pause. "I don't think I understand you. Why was
it that, more than a month ago, you put it to me so urgently to let
Madame de Vionnet speak for you?"

"'Why'?" Chad considered, but he had it at his fingers' ends.
"Why but because I knew how well she'd do it? It was the way to
keep you quiet and, to that extent, do you good. Besides," he
happily and comfortably explained, "I wanted you really to know her
and to get the impression of her—and you see the good that HAS done
you."

"Well," said Strether, "the way she has spoken for you, all the
same—so far as I've given her a chance—has only made me feel how
much she wishes to keep you. If you make nothing of that I don't
see why you wanted me to listen to her."

"Why my dear man," Chad exclaimed, "I make everything of it! How
can you doubt—?"

"I doubt only because you come to me this morning with your
signal to start."

Chad stared, then gave a laugh. "And isn't my signal to start
just what you've been waiting for?"

Strether debated; he took another turn. "This last month I've
been awaiting, I think, more than anything else, the message I have
here."

"You mean you've been afraid of it?"

"Well, I was doing my business in my own way. And I suppose your
present announcement," Strether went on, "isn't merely the result
of your sense of what I've expected. Otherwise you wouldn't have
put me in relation—" But he paused, pulling up.

At this Chad rose. "Ah HER wanting me not to go has nothing to
do with it! It's only because she's afraid—afraid of the way that,
over there, I may get caught. But her fear's groundless."

He had met again his companion's sufficiently searching look.
"Are you tired of her?"

Chad gave him in reply to this, with a movement of the head, the
strangest slow smile he had ever had from him. "Never."

It had immediately, on Strether's imagination, so deep and soft
an effect that our friend could only for the moment keep it before
him. "Never?"

"Never," Chad obligingly and serenely repeated.

It made his companion take several more steps. "Then YOU'RE not
afraid."

"Afraid to go?"

Strether pulled up again. "Afraid to stay."

The young man looked brightly amazed. "You want me now to
'stay'?"

"If I don't immediately sail the Pococks will immediately come
out. That's what I mean," said Strether, "by your mother's
ultimatum ."

Chad showed a still livelier, but not an alarmed interest. "She
has turned on Sarah and Jim?"

Strether joined him for an instant in the vision. "Oh and you
may be sure Mamie. THAT'S whom she's turning on."

This also Chad saw—he laughed out. "Mamie—to corrupt me?"

"Ah," said Strether, "she's very charming."

"So you've already more than once told me. I should like to see
her."

Something happy and easy, something above all unconscious, in
the way he said this, brought home again to his companion the
facility of his attitude and the enviability of his state. "See her
then by all means. And consider too," Strether went on, "that you
really give your sister a lift in letting her come to you. You give
her a couple of months of Paris, which she hasn't seen, if I'm not
mistaken, since just after she was married, and which I'm sure she
wants but the pretext to visit."

Chad listened, but with all his own knowledge of the world. "She
has had it, the pretext, these several years, yet she has never
taken it."

"Do you mean YOU?" Strether after an instant enquired.

"Certainly—the lone exile. And whom do you mean?" said Chad.

"Oh I mean ME. I'm her pretext. That is—for it comes to the same
thing—I'm your mother's."

"Then why," Chad asked, "doesn't Mother come herself?"

His friend gave him a long look. "Should you like her to?" And
as he for the moment said nothing: "It's perfectly open to you to
cable for her."

Chad continued to think. "Will she come if I do?"

"Quite possibly. But try, and you'll see."

"Why don't YOU try?" Chad after a moment asked.

"Because I don't want to."

Chad thought. "Don't desire her presence here?"

Strether faced the question, and his answer was the more
emphatic. "Don't put it off, my dear boy, on ME!"

"Well—I see what you mean. I'm sure you'd behave beautifully but
you DON'T want to see her. So I won't play you that trick.'

"Ah," Strether declared, "I shouldn't call it a trick. You've a
perfect right, and it would be perfectly straight of you." Then he
added in a different tone: "You'd have moreover, in the person of
Madame de Vionnet, a very interesting relation prepared for
her."

Their eyes, on this proposition, continued to meet, but Chad's
pleasant and bold, never flinched for a moment. He got up at last
and he said something with which Strether was struck. "She wouldn't
understand her, but that makes no difference. Madame de Vionnet
would like to see her. She'd like to be charming to her. She
believes she could work it."

Strether thought a moment, affected by this, but finally turning
away. "She couldn't!"

"You're quite sure?" Chad asked.

"Well, risk it if you like!"

Strether, who uttered this with serenity, had urged a plea for
their now getting into the air; but the young man still waited.
"Have you sent your answer?"

"No, I've done nothing yet."

"Were you waiting to see me?"

"No, not that."

"Only waiting"—and Chad, with this, had a smile for him—"to see
Miss Gostrey?"

"No—not even Miss Gostrey. I wasn't waiting to see any one. I
had only waited, till now, to make up my mind—in complete solitude;
and, since I of course absolutely owe you the information, was on
the point of going out with it quite made up. Have therefore a
little more patience with me. Remember," Strether went on, "that
that's what you originally asked ME to have. I've had it, you see,
and you see what has come of it. Stay on with me."

Chad looked grave. "How much longer?"

"Well, till I make you a sign. I can't myself, you know, at the
best, or at the worst, stay for ever. Let the Pococks come,"
Strether repeated.

"Because it gains you time?"

"Yes—it gains me time."

Chad, as if it still puzzled him, waited a minute. "You don't
want to get back to Mother?"

"Not just yet. I'm not ready."

"You feel," Chad asked in a tone of his own, "the charm of life
over here?"

"Immensely." Strether faced it. "You've helped me so to feel it
that that surely needn't surprise you."

"No, it doesn't surprise me, and I'm delighted. But what, my
dear man," Chad went on with conscious queerness, "does it all lead
to for you?"

The change of position and of relation, for each, was so oddly
betrayed in the question that Chad laughed out as soon as he had
uttered it—which made Strether also laugh. "Well, to my having a
certitude that has been tested—that has passed through the fire.
But oh," he couldn't help breaking out, "if within my first month
here you had been willing to move with me—!"

"Well?" said Chad, while he broke down as for weight of
thought.

"Well, we should have been over there by now."

"Ah but you wouldn't have had your fun!"

"I should have had a month of it; and I'm having now, if you
want to know," Strether continued, "enough to last me for the rest
of my days."

Chad looked amused and interested, yet still somewhat in the
dark; partly perhaps because Strether's estimate of fun had
required of him from the first a good deal of elucidation. "It
wouldn't do if I left you—?"

"Left me?"—Strether remained blank.

"Only for a month or two—time to go and come. Madame de
Vionnet," Chad smiled, "would look after you in the interval."

"To go back by yourself, I remaining here?" Again for an instant
their eyes had the question out; after which Strether said:
"Grotesque!"

"But I want to see Mother," Chad presently returned. "Remember
how long it is since I've seen Mother."

"Long indeed; and that's exactly why I was originally so keen
for moving you. Hadn't you shown us enough how beautifully you
could do without it?"

"Oh but," said Chad wonderfully, "I'm better now."

There was an easy triumph in it that made his friend laugh out
again. "Oh if you were worse I SHOULD know what to do with you. In
that case I believe I'd have you gagged and strapped down, carried
on board resisting, kicking. How MUCH," Strether asked, "do you
want to see Mother?"

"How much?"—Chad seemed to find it in fact difficult to say.

"How much."

"Why as much as you've made me. I'd give anything to see her.
And you've left me," Chad went on, "in little enough doubt as to
how much SHE wants it."

Strether thought a minute. "Well then if those things are really
your motive catch the French steamer and sail to-morrow. Of course,
when it comes to that, you're absolutely free to do as you choose.
From the moment you can't hold yourself I can only accept your
flight."

"I'll fly in a minute then," said Chad, "if you'll stay
here."

"I'll stay here till the next steamer—then I'll follow you."

"And do you call that," Chad asked, "accepting my flight?"

"Certainly—it's the only thing to call it. The only way to keep
me here, accordingly," Strether explained, "is by staying
yourself."

Chad took it in. "All the more that I've really dished you,
eh?"

"Dished me?" Strether echoed as inexpressively as possible.

"Why if she sends out the Pococks it will be that she doesn't
trust you, and if she doesn't trust you, that bears upon—well, you
know what."

Strether decided after a moment that he did know what, and in
consonance with this he spoke. "You see then all the more what you
owe me."

"Well, if I do see, how can I pay?"

"By not deserting me. By standing by me."

"Oh I say—!" But Chad, as they went downstairs, clapped a firm
hand, in the manner of a pledge, upon his shoulder. They descended
slowly together and had, in the court of the hotel, some further
talk, of which the upshot was that they presently separated. Chad
Newsome departed, and Strether, left alone, looked about,
superficially, for Waymarsh. But Waymarsh hadn't yet, it appeared,
come down, and our friend finally went forth without sight of
him.

At four o'clock that afternoon he had still not seen him, but he
was then, as to make up for this, engaged in talk about him with
Miss Gostrey. Strether had kept away from home all day, given
himself up to the town and to his thoughts, wandered and mused,
been at once restless and absorbed—and all with the present climax
of a rich little welcome in the Quartier Marboeuf. "Waymarsh has
been, 'unbeknown' to me, I'm convinced"—for Miss Gostrey had
enquired—"in communication with Woollett: the consequence of which
was, last night, the loudest possible call for me."

"Do you mean a letter to bring you home?"

"No—a cable, which I have at this moment in my pocket: a 'Come
back by the first ship.'"

Strether's hostess, it might have been made out, just escaped
changing colour. Reflexion arrived but in time and established a
provisional serenity. It was perhaps exactly this that enabled her
to say with duplicity: "And you're going—?"

"You almost deserve it when you abandon me so."

She shook her head as if this were not worth taking up. "My
absence has helped you—as I've only to look at you to see. It was
my calculation, and I'm justified. You're not where you were. And
the thing," she smiled, "was for me not to be there either. You can
go of yourself."