The Ambassadors

Those occasions on which Strether was, in association with the exile from Milrose, to see thesacred rage glimmer through would doubtless have their due periodicity; but our friend hadmeanwhile to find names for many other matters.

On no evening of his life perhaps, as he reflected,had he had to supply so many as on the third of his short stay in London; an evening spent by MissGostrey's side at one of the theatres, to which he had found himself transported, without his ownhand raised, on the mere expression of a conscientious wonder.

She knew her theatre, she knew herplay, as she had triumphantly known, three days running, everything else, and the moment filled tothe brim, for her companion, that apprehension of the interesting which, whether or no theinteresting happened to filter through his guide, strained now to its limits his brief opportunity.Waymarsh hadn't come with them; he had seen plays enough, he signified, before Strether hadjoined him-an affirmation that had its full force when his friend ascertained by questions that hehad seen two and a circus.

Questions as to what he had seen had on him indeed an effect only lessfavourable than questions as to what he hadn't.

He liked the former to be discriminated; but howcould it be done, Strether asked of their constant counsellor, without discriminating the latter?Miss Gostrey had dined with him at his hotel, face to face over a small table on which the lightedcandles had rose-coloured shades; and the rose-coloured shades and the small table and the softfragrance of the lady-had anything to his mere sense ever been so soft?-were so many touches inhe scarce knew what positive high picture.

He had been to the theatre, even to the opera, in Boston,with Mrs. Newsome, more than once acting as her only escort; but there had been no littleconfronted dinner, no pink lights, no whiff of vague sweetness, as a preliminary: one of the resultsof which was that at present, mildly rueful, though with a sharpish accent, he actually asked himselfwhy there hadn't.

There was much the same difference in his impression of the noticed state of hiscompanion, whose dress was "cut down," as he believed the term to be, in respect to shoulders andbosom, in a manner quite other than Mrs. Newsome's, and who wore round her throat a broad redvelvet band with an antique jewel-he was rather complacently sure it was antique-attached to it infront.

Mrs. Newsome's dress was never in any degree "cut down," and she never wore round herthroat a broad red velvet band: if she had, moreover, would it ever have served so to carry on andcomplicate, as he now almost felt, his vision?