I feel like the outgoing ambassador," said Strether, "doing honour to his appointed successor." A moment after speaking as he had just done he felt he had inadvertently rather cheapened Mrs.Newsome to her son; an impression audibly reflected, as at first seen, in Chad's prompt protest.

He had recently rather failed of apprehension of the young man's attitude and temper--remaining principally conscious of how little worry, at the worst, he wasted, and he studied him at this critical hour with renewed interest.

Chad had done exactly what he had promised him a fortnight previous--had accepted without another question his plea for delay.

He was waiting cheerfully and handsomely, but also inscrutably and with a slight increase perhaps of the hardness originally involved in his acquired high polish.

He was neither excited nor depressed; was easy and acute and deliberate--unhurried unflurried unworried, only at most a little less amused than usual.