The Ambassadors builds, at last, toward its moment of crisis

Nearing the end of Henry James's "The Ambassadors" and I wouldn't say the pace picks up (it couldn't slow down) but the moment comes to its crisis: first, the protagonist, Strether, engages in a long and typically almost impenetrable discussion with his sometime friend Waymarsh, and the upshot is that their relationship is now strained and compromised and in fact they are becoming rivals - though Waymarsh's designs are really foggy. It appears, as best as I can make out and recall, that Waymarsh is in some kind of relationship with Mrs. Newsome's daughter, Sarah (aka Sally?) Pocock, and Waymarsh becomes an intermediary, setting up a meeting to between Strether and Mrs. Pocock to talk about the mission that has brought both of them to Paris: an attempt to "save" Pocock's brother, Chad, and bring him home to America to run the family business. Strether anticipates this meeting with S. Pocock, indicating he will be more honest and direct than ever before in his life (what a relief for the reader!). He doesn't entirely make good - it's still not a terribly easy chapter to understand - but we get the main point: Pocock is furious at Strether and even more so at Chad for taking up with the married Comtesse de Vionnet. So be it - but what about S.Pocock herself, prancing around Paris on the arm of Waymarsh, while her good but doltish husband, Jim (James sometimes has it as "Jim," for whatever reason: maybe he resented the shortening of his own surname, Henry Jim?) heads for a "good time" at the Varieties. At this point, inevitably, the characters, and Strether in particular, are facing a choice: attempt to fulfill your mission and bring Chad home, or if failing that return to home and report; or stay in Paris and make a new life, perhaps a more honest life. Mrs. Pocock pretty much makes it clear to Strether, as clear as anything is in this miasmic plot, that her mother, Mrs. Newsome, is through with him. But what did she expect, or suspect? He's so clearly not in love with her - did she think for any reason that sending him off to Paris on this foolish mission could win his heart? Or maybe she didn't want to win his heart - maybe shipping him off to Paris as her ambassador was her way of pushing him out of her life. We don't really know - she's the central character, in a way, but she doesn't have a word to say throughout the entire novel.