Poor Strether had at this very moment to recognise the truth that wherever one paused in Paris the imagination reacted before one could stop it.

This perpetual reaction put a price, if one would, on pauses; but it piled up consequences till there was scarce room to pick one's steps among them.

What call had he, at such a juncture, for example, to like Chad's very house?
High broad clear--he was expert enough to make out in a moment that it was admirably built--it fairly embarrassed our friend by the quality that, as he would have said, it "sprang" on him.

He had struck off the fancy that it might, as a preliminary, be of service to him to be seen, by a happy accident, from the third-story windows, which took all the March sun, but of what service was it to find himself making out after a moment that the quality "sprung," the quality produced by measure and balance, the fine relation of part to part and space to space, was probably--aided by the presence of ornament as positive as it was discreet, and by the complexion of the stone, a cold fair grey, warmed and polished a little by life--neither more nor less than a case of distinction, such a case as he could only feel unexpectedly as a sort of delivered challenge?
Meanwhile, however, the chance he had allowed for--the chance of being seen in time from the balcony--had become a fact.

Two or three of the windows stood open to the violet air; and, before Strether had cut the knot by crossing, a young man had come out and looked about him, had lighted a cigarette and tossed the match over, and then, resting on the rail, had given himself up to watching the life below while he smoked.