You once said to me"—he followed this further—"that you held Chad should marry.
I didn't see then so well as I know now that you meant he should marry Miss Pocock.
Do you still consider that he should?
Because if you do"—he kept it up—"I want you immediately to change your mind.
You can help me that way."
"Help you by thinking he should NOT marry?"
"Not marry at all events Mamie."
"And who then?"
"Ah," Strether returned, "that I'm not obliged to say.
But Madame de Vionnet—I suggest—when he can.'
"Oh!" said little Bilham with some sharpness.
"Oh precisely!
But he needn't marry at all—I'm at any rate not obliged to provide for it.
Whereas in your case I rather feel that I AM."
Little Bilham was amused.
"Obliged to provide for my marrying?"
"Yes—after all I've done to you!"
The young man weighed it. "Have you done as much as that?"
"Well," said Strether, thus challenged, "of course I must remember what you've also done to ME.
We may perhaps call it square.
But all the same," he went on, "I wish awfully you'd marry Mamie Pocock yourself."
Little Bilham laughed out. "Why it was only the other night, in this very place, that you were proposing to me a different union altogether."
"Mademoiselle de Vionnet?" Well, Strether easily confessed it.
"That, I admit, was a vain image. THIS is practical politics.
I want to do something good for both of you—I wish you each so well; and you can see in a moment the trouble it will save me to polish you off by the same stroke.
She likes you, you know.
You console her.
And she's splendid."
Little Bilham stared as a delicate appetite stares at an overheaped plate.
"What do I console her for?"
It just made his friend impatient. "Oh come, you knows"
"And what proves for you that she likes me?"
"Why the fact that I found her three days ago stopping at home alone all the golden afternoon on the mere chance that you'd come to her, and hanging over her balcony on that of seeing your cab drive up.
I don't know what you want more."
Little Bilham after a moment found it.
"Only just to know what proves to you that I like HER."
"Oh if what I've just mentioned isn't enough to make you do it, you're a stony-hearted little fiend.
Besides"—Strether encouraged his fancy's flight—"you showed your inclination in the way you kept her waiting, kept her on purpose to see if she cared enough for you."
His companion paid his ingenuity the deference of a pause. "I didn't keep her waiting. I came at the hour.
I wouldn't have kept her waiting for the world," the young man honourably declared.
"Better still—then there you are!"
And Strether, charmed, held him the faster.
"Even if you didn't do her justice, moreover," he continued, "I should insist on your immediately coming round to it.
I want awfully to have worked it.
I want"—and our friend spoke now with a yearning that was really earnest—"at least to have done THAT."
"To have married me off—without a penny?"
"Well, I shan't live long; and I give you my word, now and here, that I'll leave you every penny of my own.
I haven't many, unfortunately, but you shall have them all.
And Miss Pocock, I think, has a few.
I want," Strether went on, "to have been at least to that extent constructive even expiatory.