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

“Well, it is virtuous,” his companion observed with some decision.

“That’s exactly,” the young man dropped after a moment, “what I mean.”

It kept Strether himself silent a little. “I’ve made it out for myself,” he then went on; “I’ve really, within the last half-hour, got hold of it. I understand it in short at last; which at first⁠—when you originally spoke to me⁠—I didn’t. Nor when Chad originally spoke to me either.”

“Oh,” said little Bilham, “I don’t think that at that time you believed me.”

“Yes⁠—I did; and I believed Chad too. It would have been odious and unmannerly⁠—as well as quite perverse⁠—if I hadn’t. What interest have you in deceiving me?”

The young man cast about. “What interest have I?”

“Yes. Chad might have. But you?”

“Ah, ah, ah!” little Bilham exclaimed.

It might, on repetition, as a mystification, have irritated our friend a little, but he knew, once more, as we have seen, where he was, and his being proof against everything was only another attestation that he meant to stay there. “I couldn’t, without my own impression, realise. She’s a tremendously clever brilliant capable woman, and with an extraordinary charm on top of it all⁠—the charm we surely all of us this evening know what to think of. It isn’t every clever brilliant capable woman that has it. In fact it’s rare with any woman. So there you are,” Strether proceeded as if not for little Bilham’s benefit alone. “I understand what a relation with such a woman⁠—what such a high fine friendship⁠—may be. It can’t be vulgar or coarse, anyway⁠—and that’s the point.”

“Yes, that’s the point,” said little Bilham. “It can’t be vulgar or coarse. And, bless us and save us, it isn’t! It’s, upon my word, the very finest thing I ever saw in my life, and the most distinguished.”

Strether, from beside him and leaning back with him as he leaned, dropped on him a momentary look which filled a short interval and of which he took no notice. He only gazed before him with intent participation. “Of course what it has done for him,” Strether at all events presently pursued, “of course what it has done for him⁠—that is as to how it has so wonderfully worked⁠—isn’t a thing I pretend to understand. I’ve to take it as I find it. There he is.”

“There he is!” little Bilham echoed. “And it’s really and truly she. I don’t understand either, even with my longer and closer opportunity. But I’m like you,” he added; “I can admire and rejoice even when I’m a little in the dark. You see I’ve watched it for some three years, and especially for this last. He wasn’t so bad before it as I seem to have made out that you think⁠—”

“Oh I don’t think anything now!” Strether impatiently broke in: “that is but what I do think! I mean that originally, for her to have cared for him⁠—”

“There must have been stuff in him? Oh yes, there was stuff indeed, and much more of it than ever showed, I dare say, at home. Still, you know,” the young man in all fairness developed, “there was room for her, and that’s where she came in. She saw her chance and took it. That’s what strikes me as having been so fine. But of course,” he wound up, “he liked her first.”

“Naturally,” said Strether.

“I mean that they first met somehow and somewhere⁠—I believe in some American house⁠—and she, without in the least then intending it, made her impression. Then with time and opportunity he made his; and after that she was as bad as he.”

Strether vaguely took it up. “As ‘bad’?”

“She began, that is, to care⁠—to care very much. Alone, and in her horrid position, she found it, when once she had started, an interest. It was, it is, an interest, and it did⁠—it continues to do⁠—a lot for herself as well. So she still cares. She cares in fact,” said little Bilham thoughtfully, “more.”

Strether’s theory that it was none of his business was somehow not damaged by the way he took this. “More, you mean, than he?” On which his companion looked round at him, and now for an instant their eyes met. “More than he?” he repeated.

Little Bilham, for as long, hung fire. “Will you never tell anyone?”

Strether thought. “Whom should I tell?”

“Why I supposed you reported regularly⁠—”

“To people at home?”⁠—Strether took him up. “Well, I won’t tell them this.”

The young man at last looked away. “Then she does now care more than he.”

“Oh!” Strether oddly exclaimed.

But his companion immediately met it. “Haven’t you after all had your impression of it? That’s how you’ve got hold of him.”

“Ah but I haven’t got hold of him!”

“Oh I say!” But it was all little Bilham said.

“It’s at any rate none of my business. I mean,” Strether explained, “nothing else than getting hold of him is.” It appeared, however, to strike him as his business to add: “The fact remains nevertheless that she has saved him.”

Little Bilham just waited. “I thought that was what you were to do.”

But Strether had his answer ready. “I’m speaking⁠—in connection with her⁠—of his manners and morals, his character and life. I’m speaking of him as a person to deal with and talk with and live with⁠—speaking of him as a social animal.”

“And isn’t it as a social animal that you also want him?”

“Certainly; so that it’s as if she had saved him for us.”

“It strikes you accordingly then,” the young man threw out, “as for you all to save her?”

“Oh for us ‘all’⁠—!” Strether could but laugh at that. It brought him back, however, to the point he had really wished to make. “They’ve accepted their situation⁠—hard as it is. They’re not free⁠—at least she’s not; but they take what’s left to them. It’s a friendship, of a beautiful sort; and that’s what makes them so strong. They’re straight, they feel; and they keep each other up. It’s doubtless she, however, who, as you yourself have hinted, feels it most.”

Little