Chapter 1

Book First

I

Strether's first question, when he reached the hotel, was about his
friend; yet on his learning that Waymarsh was apparently not to
arrive till evening he was not wholly disconcerted. A telegram from
him bespeaking a room "only if not noisy," reply paid, was produced
for the enquirer at the office, so that the understanding they
should meet at Chester rather than at Liverpool remained to that
extent sound. The same secret principle, however, that had prompted
Strether not absolutely to desire Waymarsh's presence at the dock,
that had led him thus to postpone for a few hours his enjoyment of
it, now operated to make him feel he could still wait without
disappointment. They would dine together at the worst, and, with
all respect to dear old Waymarsh--if not even, for that matter, to
himself--there was little fear that in the sequel they shouldn't
see enough of each other. The principle I have just mentioned as
operating had been, with the most newly disembarked of the two men,
wholly instinctive--the fruit of a sharp sense that, delightful as
it would be to find himself looking, after so much separation, into
his comrade's face, his business would be a trifle bungled should
he simply arrange for this countenance to present itself to the
nearing steamer as the first "note," of Europe. Mixed with
everything was the apprehension, already, on Strether's part, that
it would, at best, throughout, prove the note of Europe in quite a
sufficient degree.

That note had been meanwhile--since the previous afternoon, thanks
to this happier device--such a consciousness of personal freedom as
he hadn't known for years; such a deep taste of change and of
having above all for the moment nobody and nothing to consider, as
promised already, if headlong hope were not too foolish, to colour
his adventure with cool success. There were people on the ship with
whom he had easily consorted--so far as ease could up to now be
imputed to him--and who for the most part plunged straight into the
current that set from the landing-stage to London; there were
others who had invited him to a tryst at the inn and had even
invoked his aid for a "look round" at the beauties of Liverpool;
but he had stolen away from every one alike, had kept no
appointment and renewed no acquaintance, had been indifferently
aware of the number of persons who esteemed themselves fortunate in
being, unlike himself, "met," and had even independently,
unsociably, alone, without encounter or relapse and by mere quiet
evasion, given his afternoon and evening to the immediate and the
sensible. They formed a qualified draught of Europe, an afternoon
and an evening on the banks of the Mersey, but such as it was he
took his