There was light for observation, however, in an incident that occurred just before they turned back to luncheon. Waymarsh had been for a quarter of an hour exceptionally mute and distant, and something, or other—Strether was never to make out exactly what—proved, as it were, too much for him after his comrades had stood for three minutes taking in, while they leaned on an old balustrade that guarded the edge of the Row, a particularly crooked and huddled street-view. “He thinks us sophisticated, he thinks us worldly, he thinks us wicked, he thinks us all sorts of queer things,” Strether reflected; for wondrous were the vague quantities our friend had within a couple of short days acquired the habit of conveniently and conclusively lumping together. There seemed moreover a direct connexion between some such inference and a sudden grim dash taken by Waymarsh to the opposite side. This movement was startlingly sudden, and his companions at first supposed him to have espied, to be pursuing, the glimpse of an acquaintance. They next made out, however, that an open door had instantly received him, and they then recognised him as engulfed in the establishment of a jeweller, behind whose glittering front he was lost to view. The fact had somehow the note of a demonstration, and it left each of the others to show a face almost of fear. But Miss Gostrey broke into a laugh. “What’s the matter with him?” “Well,” said Strether, “he can’t stand it.” “But can’t stand what?” “Anything. Europe.” “Then how will that jeweller help him?” Strether seemed to make it out, from their position, between the interstices of arrayed watches, of close-hung dangling gewgaws. “You’ll see.” “Ah that’s just what—if he buys anything—I’m afraid of: that I shall see something rather dreadful.” Strether studied the finer appearances. “He may buy everything.” “Then don’t you think we ought to follow him?” “Not for worlds. Besides we can’t. We’re paralysed. We exchange a long scared look, we publicly tremble. The thing is, you see, we ‘realise.’ He has struck for freedom.” She wondered but she laughed. “Ah what a price to pay! And I was preparing some for him so cheap.” “No, no,” Strether went on, frankly amused now; “don’t call it that: the kind of freedom you deal in is dear.” Then as to justify himself: “Am I not in _my_ way trying it? It’s this.” “Being here, you mean, with me?” “Yes, and talking to you as I do. I’ve known you a few hours, and I’ve known _him_ all my life; so that if the ease I thus take with you about him isn’t magnificent”—and the thought of it held him a moment—“why it’s rather base.” “It’s magnificent!” said Miss Gostrey to make an end of it. “And you should hear,” she added, “the ease _I_ take—and I above all intend to take—with Mr. Waymarsh.”