The Ambassadors by Henry James (read people like a book .TXT) 📕

lady mayn’t find herself able to swallow that quantity. She may think it’s paying too much; she may weigh one thing against another.”

Strether, ever restless in such debates, took a vague turn “It will all depend on who she is. That of course⁠—the proved ability to deal with dear old Woollett, since I’m sure she does deal with it⁠—is what makes so strongly for Mamie.”

“Mamie?”

He stopped short, at her tone, before her; then, though seeing that it represented not vagueness, but a momentary embarrassed fullness, let his exclamation come. “You surely haven’t forgotten about Mamie!”

“No, I haven’t forgotten about Mamie,” she smiled. “There’s no doubt whatever that there’s ever so much to be said for her. Mamie’s my girl!” she roundly declared.

Strether resumed for a minute his walk. “She’s really perfectly lovely, you know. Far prettier than any girl I’ve seen over here yet.”

“That’s precisely on what I perhaps most build.” And she mused a moment in her friend’s way. “I should positively like to take her in hand!”

He humoured the fancy, though indeed finally to deprecate it. “Oh but don’t, in your zeal, go over to her! I need you most and can’t, you know, be left.”

But she kept it up. “I wish they’d send her out to me!”

“If they knew you,” he returned, “they would.”

“Ah but don’t they?⁠—after all that, as I’ve understood you you’ve told them about me?”

He had paused before her again, but he continued his course “They will⁠—before, as you say, I’ve done.” Then he came out with the point he had wished after all most to make. “It seems to give away now his game. This is what he has been doing⁠—keeping me along for. He has been waiting for them.”

Miss Gostrey drew in her lips. “You see a good deal in it!”

“I doubt if I see as much as you. Do you pretend,” he went on, “that you don’t see⁠—?”

“Well, what?”⁠—she pressed him as he paused.

“Why that there must be a lot between them⁠—and that it has been going on from the first; even from before I came.”

She took a minute to answer. “Who are they then⁠—if it’s so grave?”

“It mayn’t be grave⁠—it may be gay. But at any rate it’s marked. Only I don’t know,” Strether had to confess, “anything about them. Their name for instance was a thing that, after little Bilham’s information, I found it a kind of refreshment not to feel obliged to follow up.”

“Oh,” she returned, “if you think you’ve got off⁠—!”

Her laugh produced in him a momentary gloom. “I don’t think I’ve got off. I only think I’m breathing for about five minutes. I dare say I shall have, at the best, still to get on.” A look, over it all, passed between them, and the next minute he had come back to good humour. “I don’t meanwhile take the smallest interest in their name.”

“Nor in their nationality?⁠—American, French, English, Polish?”

“I don’t care the least little ‘hang,’ ” he smiled, “for their nationality. It would be nice if they’re Polish!” he almost immediately added.

“Very nice indeed.” The transition kept up her spirits. “So you see you do care.”

He did this contention a modified justice. “I think I should if they were Polish. Yes,” he thought⁠—“there might be joy in that.”

“Let us then hope for it.” But she came after this nearer to the question. “If the girl’s of the right age of course the mother can’t be. I mean for the virtuous attachment. If the girl’s twenty⁠—and she can’t be less⁠—the mother must be at least forty. So it puts the mother out. She’s too old for him.”

Strether, arrested again, considered and demurred. “Do you think so? Do you think anyone would be too old for him? I’m eighty, and I’m too young. But perhaps the girl,” he continued, “isn’t twenty. Perhaps she’s only ten⁠—but such a little dear that Chad finds himself counting her in as an attraction of the acquaintance. Perhaps she’s only five. Perhaps the mother’s but five-and-twenty⁠—a charming young widow.”

Miss Gostrey entertained the suggestion. “She is a widow then?”

“I haven’t the least idea!” They once more, in spite of this vagueness, exchanged a look⁠—a look that was perhaps the longest yet. It seemed in fact, the next thing, to require to explain itself; which it did as it could. “I only feel what I’ve told you⁠—that he has some reason.”

Miss Gostrey’s imagination had taken its own flight. “Perhaps she’s not a widow.”

Strether seemed to accept the possibility with reserve. Still he accepted it. “Then that’s why the attachment⁠—if it’s to her⁠—is virtuous.”

But she looked as if she scarce followed. “Why is it virtuous if⁠—since she’s free⁠—there’s nothing to impose on it any condition?”

He laughed at her question. “Oh I perhaps don’t mean as virtuous as that! Your idea is that it can be virtuous⁠—in any sense worthy of the name⁠—only if she’s not free? But what does it become then,” he asked, “for her?”

“Ah that’s another matter.” He said nothing for a moment, and she soon went on. “I dare say you’re right, at any rate, about Mr. Newsome’s little plan. He has been trying you⁠—has been reporting on you to these friends.”

Strether meanwhile had had time to think more. “Then where’s his straightness?”

“Well, as we say, it’s struggling up, breaking out, asserting itself as it can. We can be on the side, you see, of his straightness. We can help him. But he has made out,” said Miss Gostrey, “that you’ll do.”

“Do for what?”

“Why, for them⁠—for ces dames. He has watched you, studied you, liked you⁠—and recognised that they must. It’s a great compliment to you, my dear man; for I’m sure they’re particular. You came out for a success. Well,” she gaily declared, “you’re having it!”

He took it from her with momentary patience and then turned abruptly away. It was always convenient to him that there were so many fine things in her room to look at. But the examination of two or three of them appeared soon to have determined