would have been sorry, have been almost ashamed not to recognise as
emotion, yet with a tacit assumption at the same time that emotion
would in the event find itself relieved. The actual oddity was that
he was only more excited; and his excitement-to which indeed he
would have found it difficult instantly to give a name--brought him
once more downstairs and caused him for some minutes vaguely to
wander. He went once more to the garden; he looked into the public
room, found Miss Gostrey writing letters and backed out; he roamed,
fidgeted and wasted time; but he was to have his more intimate
session with his friend before the evening closed.

It was late--not till Strether had spent an hour upstairs with him--
that this subject consented to betake himself to doubtful rest.
Dinner and the subsequent stroll by moonlight--a dream, on
Strether's part, of romantic effects rather prosaically merged in a
mere missing of thicker coats--had measurably intervened, and this
midnight conference was the result of Waymarsh's having (when they
were free, as he put it, of their fashionable friend) found the
smoking-room not quite what he wanted, and yet bed what he wanted
less. His most frequent form of words was that he knew himself, and
they were applied on this occasion to his certainty of not
sleeping. He knew himself well enough to know that he should have a
night of prowling unless he should succeed, as a preliminary, in
getting prodigiously tired. If the effort directed to this end
involved till a late hour the presence of Strether--consisted,
that is, in the detention of the latter for full discourse--there
was yet an impression of minor discipline involved for our friend
in the picture Waymarsh made as he sat in trousers and shirt on the
edge of his couch. With his long legs extended and his large back
much bent, he nursed alternately, for an almost incredible time,