Strether had broken in by returning to the subject of Chad's passage with Sarah and enquiring if they had arrived, in the event, at anything in the nature of a "scene." To this Chad replied that they had on the contrary kept tremendously polite; adding moreover that Sally was after all not the woman to have made the mistake of not being.

"Her hands are a good deal tied, you see.

I got so, from the first," he sagaciously observed, "the start of her." "You mean she has taken so much from you ?" "Well, I couldn't of course in common decency give less: only she hadn't expected, I think, that I'd give her nearly so much.

And she began to take it before she knew it." "And she began to like it," said Strether, "as soon as she began to take it!" "Yes, she has liked it--also more than she expected." After which Chad observed: "But she doesn't like ME.

In fact she hates me." Strether's interest grew.