What he was asking himself for the time was how Sarah Pocock, in the opportunity already given her, had judged her brother--from whom he himself, as they finally, at the station, separated for their different conveyances, had had a look into which he could read more than one message.

However Sarah was judging her brother, Chad's conclusion about his sister, and about her husband and her husband's sister, was at the least on the way not to fail of confidence.

Strether felt the confidence, and that, as the look between them was an exchange, what he himself gave back was relatively vague.

This comparison of notes however could wait; everything struck him as depending on the effect produced by Chad.

Neither Sarah nor Mamie had in any way, at the station--where they had had after all ample time--broken out about it; which, to make up for this, was what our friend had expected of Jim as soon as they should find themselves together.
It was queer to him that he had that noiseless brush with Chad; an ironic intelligence with this youth on the subject of his relatives, an intelligence carried on under their nose and, as might be said, at their expense--such a matter marked again for him strongly the number of stages he had come; albeit that if the number seemed great the time taken for the final one was but the turn of a hand.