To-night truly she WOULD worry him, and this was her appeal to him to let her risk it.

He wasn't to mind if she bored him a little: she had behaved, after all--hadn't she ?--so awfully, awfully well.
II "Oh, you're all right, you're all right," he almost impatiently declared; his impatience being moreover not for her pressure, but for her scruple.

More and more distinct to him was the tune to which she would have had the matter out with Chad: more and more vivid for him the idea that she had been nervous as to what he might be able to "stand." Yes, it had been a question if he had "stood" what the scene on the river had given him, and, though the young man had doubtless opined in favour of his recuperation, her own last word must have been that she should feel easier in seeing for herself.

That was it, unmistakeably; she WAS seeing for herself.

What he could stand was thus, in these moments, in the balance for Strether, who reflected, as he became fully aware of it, that he must properly brace himself.