On the point of conceding that Chad had improved in appearance, but that to the question of appearance the remark must be confined, he checked even that compromise and left his reservation bare.

Not only his moral, but also, as it were, his aesthetic sense had a little to pay for this, Chad being unmistakeably--and wasn't it a matter of the confounded grey hair again ?--handsomer than he had ever promised.

That however fell in perfectly with what Strether had said.
They had no desire to keep down his proper expansion, and he wouldn't be less to their purpose for not looking, as he had too often done of old, only bold and wild.

There was indeed a signal particular in which he would distinctly be more so.

Strether didn't, as he talked, absolutely follow himself; he only knew he was clutching his thread and that he held it from moment to moment a little tighter; his mere uninterruptedness during the few minutes helped him to do that.