ough the dust. During some seconds after he had spoken
Strether felt as if HE had made some such exertion; he was not even
certain that the perspiration wasn't on his brow. It was the kind of
consciousness for which he had to thank the look that, while the strain
lasted, the young man's eyes gave him. They reflected--and the deuce
of the thing was that they reflected really with a sort of shyness of
kindness--his momentarily disordered state; which fact brought on in
its turn for our friend the dawn of a fear that Chad might simply "take
it out"--take everything out--in being sorry for him. Such a fear, any
fear, was unpleasant. But everything was unpleasant; it was odd how
everything had suddenly turned so. This however was no reason for
letting the least thing go. Strether had the next minute proceeded as
roundly as if with an advantage to follow up. "Of course I'm a
busybody, if you want to fight the case to the death; but after all
mainly in the sense of having known you and having given you such
attention as you kindly permitted when you were in jackets and
knickerbockers. Yes--it was knickerbockers, I'm busybody enough to
remember that; and that you had, for your age--I speak of the first
far-away time--tremendously stout legs. Well, we want you to break.
Your mother's heart's passionately set upon it, but she has above and
beyond that excellent arguments and reasons. I've not put them into
her head--I needn't remind you how little she's a person who needs
that. But they exist--you must take it from me as a friend both of
hers and yours--for myself as well. I didn't invent them, I didn't
originally work them out; but I understand them, I think I can explain
them--by which I mean make you actively do them justice; and that's why
you see me here. You had better know the worst at once. It's a
question of an immediate rupture and an immediate return. I've been
conceited enough to dream I can sugar that pill. I take at any rate
the greatest interest in the question. I took it already before I left
home, and I don't mind telling you that, altered as you are, I take it
still more now that I've seen you. You're older and--I don't know what
to call it!--more of a handful; but you're by so much the more, I seem
to make out, to our purpose."

"Do I strike you as improved?" Strether was to recall that Chad had at
this point enquired.

He was likewise to recall--and it had to count for some time as his
great