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

to a clue after she had answered that this personage was, in the other room, engaged in conversation with Madame de Vionnet. He stared a moment at the image of such a conjunction; then, for Miss Barrace’s benefit, he wondered. “Is she too then under the charm⁠—?”

“No, not a bit”⁠—Miss Barrace was prompt. “She makes nothing of him. She’s bored. She won’t help you with him.”

“Oh,” Strether laughed, “she can’t do everything.”

“Of course not⁠—wonderful as she is. Besides, he makes nothing of her. She won’t take him from me⁠—though she wouldn’t, no doubt, having other affairs in hand, even if she could. I’ve never,” said Miss Barrace, “seen her fail with anyone before. And tonight, when she’s so magnificent, it would seem to her strange⁠—if she minded. So at any rate I have him all. Je suis tranquille!”

Strether understood, so far as that went; but he was feeling for his clue. “She strikes you tonight as particularly magnificent?”

“Surely. Almost as I’ve never seen her. Doesn’t she you? Why it’s for you.”

He persisted in his candour. “ ‘For’ me⁠—?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Miss Barrace, who persisted in the opposite of that quality.

“Well,” he acutely admitted, “she is different. She’s gay.”

“She’s gay!” Miss Barrace laughed. “And she has beautiful shoulders⁠—though there’s nothing different in that.”

“No,” said Strether, “one was sure of her shoulders. It isn’t her shoulders.”

His companion, with renewed mirth and the finest sense, between the puffs of her cigarette, of the drollery of things, appeared to find their conversation highly delightful. “Yes, it isn’t her shoulders.”

“What then is it?” Strether earnestly enquired.

“Why, it’s she⁠—simply. It’s her mood. It’s her charm.”

“Of course it’s her charm, but we’re speaking of the difference.”

“Well,” Miss Barrace explained, “she’s just brilliant, as we used to say. That’s all. She’s various. She’s fifty women.”

“Ah but only one”⁠—Strether kept it clear⁠—“at a time.”

“Perhaps. But in fifty times⁠—!”

“Oh we shan’t come to that,” our friend declared; and the next moment he had moved in another direction. “Will you answer me a plain question? Will she ever divorce?”

Miss Barrace looked at him through all her tortoiseshell. “Why should she?”

It wasn’t what he had asked for, he signified; but he met it well enough. “To marry Chad.”

“Why should she marry Chad?”

“Because I’m convinced she’s very fond of him. She has done wonders for him.”

“Well then, how could she do more? Marrying a man, or woman either,” Miss Barrace sagely went on, “is never the wonder for any Jack and Jill can bring that off. The wonder is their doing such things without marrying.”

Strether considered a moment this proposition. “You mean it’s so beautiful for our friends simply to go on so?”

But whatever he said made her laugh. “Beautiful.”

He nevertheless insisted. “And that because it’s disinterested?”

She was now, however, suddenly tired of the question. “Yes then⁠—call it that. Besides, she’ll never divorce. Don’t, moreover,” she added, “believe everything you hear about her husband.”

“He’s not then,” Strether asked, “a wretch?”

“Oh yes. But charming.”

“Do you know him?”

“I’ve met him. He’s bien aimable.”

“To everyone but his wife?”

“Oh for all I know, to her too⁠—to any, to every woman. I hope you at any rate,” she pursued with a quick change, “appreciate the care I take of Mr. Waymarsh.”

“Oh immensely.” But Strether was not yet in line. “At all events,” he roundly brought out, “the attachment’s an innocent one.”

“Mine and his? Ah,” she laughed, “don’t rob it of all interest!”

“I mean our friend’s here⁠—to the lady we’ve been speaking of.” That was what he had settled to as an indirect but none the less closely involved consequence of his impression of Jeanne. That was where he meant to stay. “It’s innocent,” he repeated⁠—“I see the whole thing.”

Mystified by his abrupt declaration, she had glanced over at Gloriani as at the unnamed subject of his allusion, but the next moment she had understood; though indeed not before Strether had noticed her momentary mistake and wondered what might possibly be behind that too. He already knew that the sculptor admired Madame de Vionnet; but did this admiration also represent an attachment of which the innocence was discussable? He was moving verily in a strange air and on ground not of the firmest. He looked hard for an instant at Miss Barrace, but she had already gone on. “All right with Mr. Newsome? Why of course she is!”⁠—and she got gaily back to the question of her own good friend. “I dare say you’re surprised that I’m not worn out with all I see⁠—it being so much!⁠—of Sitting Bull. But I’m not, you know⁠—I don’t mind him; I bear up, and we get on beautifully. I’m very strange; I’m like that; and often I can’t explain. There are people who are supposed interesting or remarkable or whatever, and who bore me to death; and then there are others as to whom nobody can understand what anybody sees in them⁠—in whom I see no end of things.” Then after she had smoked a moment, “He’s touching, you know,” she said.

“ ‘Know’?” Strether echoed⁠—“don’t I, indeed? We must move you almost to tears.”

“Oh but I don’t mean you!” she laughed.

“You ought to then, for the worst sign of all⁠—as I must have it for you⁠—is that you can’t help me. That’s when a woman pities.”

“Ah but I do help you!” she cheerfully insisted.

Again he looked at her hard, and then after a pause: “No you don’t!”

Her tortoiseshell, on its long chain, rattled down. “I help you with Sitting Bull. That’s a good deal.”

“Oh that, yes.” But Strether hesitated. “Do you mean he talks of me?”

“So that I have to defend you? No, never.”

“I see,” Strether mused. “It’s too deep.”

“That’s his only fault,” she returned⁠—“that everything, with him, is too deep. He has depths of silence⁠—which he breaks only at the longest intervals by a remark. And when the remark comes it’s always something he has seen or felt for himself⁠—never a bit banal. That would be what one might have feared and what would kill me. But never.” She smoked