He fairly caught himself shooting rueful glances, shy looks of pursuit, toward the embodied influence, the definite adversary, who had by a stroke of her own failed him and on a fond theory of whose palpable presence he had, under Mrs.Newsome's inspiration, altogether proceeded.

He had once or twice, in secret, literally expressed the irritated wish that SHE would come out and find her.
He couldn't quite yet force it upon Woollett that such a career, such a perverted young life, showed after all a certain plausible side, DID in the case before them flaunt something like an impunity for the social man; but he could at least treat himself to the statement that would prepare him for the sharpest echo.

This echo--as distinct over there in the dry thin air as some shrill "heading" above a column of print--seemed to reach him even as he wrote.

"He says there's no woman," he could hear Mrs.Newsome report, in capitals almost of newspaper size, to Mrs.Pocock; and he could focus in Mrs.Pocock the response of the reader of the journal.

He could see in the younger lady's face the earnestness of her attention and catch the full scepticism of her but slightly delayed "What is there then ?" Just so he could again as little miss the mother's clear decision: "There's plenty of disposition, no doubt, to pretend there isn't." Strether had, after posting his letter, the whole scene out; and it was a scene during which, coming and going, as befell, he kept his eye not least upon the daughter.