Our friend continued to feel rather smothered in flowers, though he made in his other moments the almost angry inference that this was only because of his odious ascetic suspicion of any form of beauty.

He periodically assured himself--for his reactions were sharp--that he shouldn't reach the truth of anything till he had at least got rid of that.
He had known beforehand that Madame de Vionnet and her daughter would probably be on view, an intimation to that effect having constituted the only reference again made by Chad to his good friends from the south.

The effect of Strether's talk about them with Miss Gostrey had been quite to consecrate his reluctance to pry; something in the very air of Chad's silence--judged in the light of that talk--offered it to him as a reserve he could markedly match.

It shrouded them about with he scarce knew what, a consideration, a distinction; he was in presence at any rate--so far as it placed him there--of ladies; and the one thing that was definite for him was that they themselves should be, to the extent of his responsibility, in presence of a gentleman.

Was it because they were very beautiful, very clever, or even very good--was it for one of these reasons that Chad was, so to speak, nursing his effect?
Did he wish to spring them, in the Woollett phrase, with a fuller force--to confound his critic, slight though as yet the criticism, with some form of merit exquisitely incalculable?
The most the critic had at all events asked was whether the persons in question were French; and that enquiry had been but a proper comment on the sound of their name.