Chapter 7

Book Seventh

I

It wasn't the first time Strether had sat alone in the great dim
church--still less was it the first of his giving himself up, so
far as conditions permitted, to its beneficent action on his
nerves. He had been to Notre Dame with Waymarsh, he had been there
with Miss Gostrey, he had been there with Chad Newsome, and had
found the place, even in company, such a refuge from the obsession
of his problem that, with renewed pressure from that source, he had
not unnaturally recurred to a remedy meeting the case, for the
moment, so indirectly, no doubt, but so relievingly. He was
conscious enough that it was only for the moment, but good moments--
if he could call them good--still had their value for a man who by
this time struck himself as living almost disgracefully from hand
to mouth. Having so well learnt the way, he had lately made the
pilgrimage more than once by himself--had quite stolen off, taking
an unnoticed chance and making no point of speaking of the
adventure when restored to his friends.

His great friend, for that matter, was still absent, as well as
remarkably silent; even at the end of three weeks Miss Gostrey
hadn't come back. She wrote to him from Mentone, admitting that he
must judge her grossly inconsequent--perhaps in fact for the time
odiously faithless; but asking for patience, for a deferred
sentence, throwing herself in short on his generosity. For her too,
she could assure him, life was complicated--more complicated than
he could have guessed; she had moreover made certain of him--
certain of not wholly missing him on her return--before her
disappearance. If furthermore she didn't burden him with letters it
was frankly because of her sense of the other great commerce he had
to carry on. He himself, at the end of a fortnight, had written
twice, to show how his generosity could be trusted; but he reminded
himself in each case of Mrs. Newsome's epistolary manner at the
times when Mrs. Newsome kept off delicate ground. He sank his
problem, he talked of Waymarsh and Miss Barrace, of little Bilham
and the set over the river, with whom he had again had tea, and he
was easy, for convenience, about Chad and Madame de Vionnet and
Jeanne. He admitted that he continued to see them, he was decidedly
so confirmed a haunter of Chad's premises and that young man's
practical intimacy with them was so undeniably great; but he had
his reason for not attempting to render for Miss Gostrey's benefit
the impression of these last days. That would be to tell her too
much about himself--it being at present just from himself he was
trying to escape.

This small struggle sprang not a little, in its way, from the same
impulse that had now carried him across to