ace, he was held by the sculptor's eyes.
He wasn't soon to forget them, was to think of them, all unconscious,
unintending, preoccupied though they were, as the source of the deepest
intellectual sounding to which he had ever been exposed. He was in
fact quite to cherish his vision of it, to play with it in idle hours;
only speaking of it to no one and quite aware he couldn't have spoken
without appearing to talk nonsense. Was what it had told him or what
it had asked him the greater of the mysteries? Was it the most special
flare, unequalled, supreme, of the aesthetic torch, lighting that
wondrous world for ever, or was it above all the long straight shaft
sunk by a personal acuteness that life had seasoned to steel? Nothing
on earth could have been stranger and no one doubtless more surprised
than the artist himself, but it was for all the world to Strether just
then as if in the matter of his accepted duty he had positively been on
trial. The deep human expertness in Gloriani's charming smile--oh the
terrible life behind it!--was flashed upon him as a test of his stuff.

Chad meanwhile, after having easily named his companion, had still more
easily turned away and was already greeting other persons present. He
was as easy, clever Chad, with the great artist as with his obscure
compatriot, and as easy with every one else as with either: this fell
into its place for Strether and made almost a new light, giving him, as
a concatenation, something more he could enjoy. He liked Gloriani, but
should never see him again; of that he was sufficiently sure. Chad
accordingly, who was wonderful with both of them, was a kind of link
for hopeless fancy, an implication of possibilities--oh if everything
had been different! Strether noted at all events that he was thus on
terms with illustrious spirits, and also that--yes, distinctly--he
hadn't in the least swaggered about it. Our friend hadn't come there
only for this figure of Abel Newsome's son, but that presence
threatened to affect the observant mind as positively central. Gloriani
indeed, remembering something and excusing himself, pursued Chad to
speak to him, and Strether was left musing on many things. One of them
was the question of whether, since he had been tested, he had passed.
Did the artist drop him from having made out that he wouldn't do? He
really felt just to-day that he might do better than usual. Hadn't he
done well enough, so far as that went, in being exa