This latter effect was what he tried to justify--and with the success that, grave though the appearance, he at last lighted on a form that was happy.

He arrived at it by the inevitable recognition of his having been a fortnight before one of the weariest of men.

If ever a man had come off tired Lambert Strether was that man; and hadn't it been distinctly on the ground of his fatigue that his wonderful friend at home had so felt for him and so contrived?
It seemed to him somehow at these instants that, could he only maintain with sufficient firmness his grasp of that truth, it might become in a manner his compass and his helm.

What he wanted most was some idea that would simplify, and nothing would do this so much as the fact that he was done for and finished.

If it had been in such a light that he had just detected in his cup the dregs of youth, that was a mere flaw of the surface of his scheme.