"I've heard a great deal about you," she said as they went; but he had an answer to it that made her stop short.

"Well, about YOU, Madame de Vionnet, I've heard, I'm bound to say, almost nothing"-- those struck him as the only words he himself could utter with any lucidity; conscious as he was, and as with more reason, of the determination to be in respect to the rest of his business perfectly plain and go perfectly straight.

It hadn't at any rate been in the least his idea to spy on Chad's proper freedom.

It was possibly, however, at this very instant and under the impression of Madame de Vionnet's pause, that going straight began to announce itself as a matter for care.

She had only after all to smile at him ever so gently in order to make him ask himself if he weren't already going crooked.
It might be going crooked to find it of a sudden just only clear that she intended very definitely to be what he would have called nice to him.