"So do I! See here, Strether." "I know what you're going to say.

'Quit this' ?" "Quit this!" But it lacked its old intensity; nothing of it remained; it went out of the room with him.
III Almost the first thing, strangely enough, that, about an hour later, Strether found himself doing in Sarah's presence was to remark articulately on this failure, in their friend, of what had been superficially his great distinction.

It was as if--he alluded of course to the grand manner--the dear man had sacrificed it to some other advantage; which would be of course only for himself to measure.
It might be simply that he was physically so much more sound than on his first coming out; this was all prosaic, comparatively cheerful and vulgar.

And fortunately, if one came to that, his improvement in health was really itself grander than any manner it could be conceived as having cost him.

"You yourself alone, dear Sarah"-- Strether took the plunge--"have done him, it strikes me, in these three weeks, as much good as all the rest of his time together." It was a plunge because somehow the range of reference was, in the conditions, "funny," and made funnier still by Sarah's attitude, by the turn the occasion had, with her appearance, so sensibly taken.