Little Bilham's way this afternoon was not Strether's, but he had none the less kindly come with him, and it was somehow a part of his kindness that as it had sadly begun to rain they suddenly found themselves seated for conversation at a cafe in which they had taken refuge.

He had passed no more crowded hour in Chad's society than the one just ended; he had talked with Miss Barrace, who had reproached him with not having come to see her, and he had above all hit on a happy thought for causing Waymarsh's tension to relax.

Something might possibly be extracted for the latter from the idea of his success with that lady, whose quick apprehension of what might amuse her had given Strether a free hand.
What had she meant if not to ask whether she couldn't help him with his splendid encumbrance, and mightn't the sacred rage at any rate be kept a little in abeyance by thus creating for his comrade's mind even in a world of irrelevance the possibility of a relation?
What was it but a relation to be regarded as so decorative and, in especial, on the strength of it, to be whirled away, amid flounces and feathers, in a coupe lined, by what Strether could make out, with dark blue brocade?
He himself had never been whirled away--never at least in a coupe and behind a footman; he had driven with Miss Gostrey in cabs, with Mrs.
Pocock, a few times, in an open buggy, with Mrs.Newsome in a four-seated cart and, occasionally up at the mountains, on a buckboard; but his friend's actual adventure transcended his personal experience.
He now showed his companion soon enough indeed how inadequate, as a general monitor, this last queer quantity could once more feel itself.
"What game under the sun is he playing ?" He signified the next moment that his allusion was not to the fat gentleman immersed in dominoes on whom his eyes had begun by resting, but to their host of the previous hour, as to whom, there on the velvet bench, with a final collapse of all consistency, he treated himself to the comfort of indiscretion.
"Where do you see him come out ?" Little Bilham, in meditation, looked at him with a kindness almost paternal.

"Don't you like it over here ?" Strether laughed out--for the tone was indeed droll; he let himself go.
"What has that to do with it?
The only thing I've any business to like is to feel that I'm moving him.

That's why I ask you whether you believe I AM?
Is the creature"-- and he did his best to show that he simply wished to ascertain--"honest ?" His companion looked responsible, but looked it through a small dim smile.