Strether had at any rate never resembled a Southern planter of the great days--which was the image picturesquely suggested by the happy relation between the fuliginous face and the wide panama of his visitor.

This type, it further amused him to guess, had been, on Waymarsh's part, the object of Sarah's care; he was convinced that her taste had not been a stranger to the conception and purchase of the hat, any more than her fine fingers had been guiltless of the bestowal of the rose.

It came to him in the current of thought, as things so oddly did come, that HE had never risen with the lark to attend a brilliant woman to the Marche aux Fleurs; this could be fastened on him in connexion neither with Miss Gostrey nor with Madame de Vionnet; the practice of getting up early for adventures could indeed in no manner be fastened on him.

It came to him in fact that just here was his usual case: he was for ever missing things through his general genius for missing them, while others were for ever picking them up through a contrary bent.

And it was others who looked abstemious and he who looked greedy; it was he somehow who finally paid, and it was others who mainly partook.