He liked always, where Lambert Strether was concerned, to know the worst, and what he now seemed to know was not only that he was bribeable, but that he had been effectually bribed.

The only difficulty was that he couldn't quite have said with what.

It was as if he had sold himself, but hadn't somehow got the cash.

That, however, was what, characteristically, WOULD happen to him.

It would naturally be his kind of traffic.