"Mr.
Newsome--who knew extraordinarily well what he was about--laid them down ten years ago." Oh well, Waymarsh seemed to indicate with a shake of his mane, THAT didn't matter! "You're fierce for the boom anyway." His friend weighed a moment in silence the justice of the charge.

"I can scarcely be called fierce, I think, when I so freely take my chance of the possibility, the danger, of being influenced in a sense counter to Mrs.Newsome's own feelings." Waymarsh gave this proposition a long hard look.

"I see.

You're afraid yourself of being squared.

But you're a humbug," he added, "all the same." "Oh!" Strether quickly protested.
"Yes, you ask me for protection--which makes you very interesting; and then you won't take it.