He somehow rather hoped it—it seemed so to add to THIS young man's general amenability; though he wondered too if, to fight him with his own weapons, he himself (a thought almost startling) would have likewise to be.
This young man furthermore would have been much more easy to handle—at least for HIM—than appeared probable in respect to Chad.
It came up for him with Miss Gostrey that there were things of which she would really perhaps after all have heard, and she admitted when a little pressed that she was never quite sure of what she heard as distinguished from things such as, on occasions like the present, she only extravagantly guessed.
"I seem with this freedom, you see, to have guessed Mr. Chad.
He's a young man on whose head high hopes are placed at Woollett; a young man a wicked woman has got hold of and whom his family over there have sent you out to rescue.
You've accepted the mission of separating him from the wicked woman.
Are you quite sure she's very bad for him?"
Something in his manner showed it as quite pulling him up. "Of course we are.
Wouldn't YOU be?"
"Oh I don't know.
One never does—does one?—beforehand.
One can only judge on the facts.
Yours are quite new to me; I'm really not in the least, as you see, in possession of them: so it will be awfully interesting to have them from you.
If you're satisfied, that's all that's required.
I mean if you're sure you ARE sure: sure it won't do."
"That he should lead such a life?
Rather!"
"Oh but I don't know, you see, about his life; you've not told me about his life.
She may be charming—his life!"
"Charming?"—Strether stared before him.
"She's base, venal-out of the streets."
"I see.
And HE—?"
"Chad, wretched boy?"
"Of what type and temper is he?" she went on as Strether had lapsed.
"Well—the obstinate." It was as if for a moment he had been going to say more and had then controlled himself.
That was scarce what she wished.
"Do you like him?"
This time he was prompt.
"No.
How CAN I?"
"Do you mean because of your being so saddled with him?"
"I'm thinking of his mother," said Strether after a moment.
"He has darkened her admirable life." He spoke with austerity.
"He has worried her half to death."
"Oh that's of course odious."
She had a pause as if for renewed emphasis of this truth, but it ended on another note. "Is her life very admirable?"
"Extraordinarily." There was so much in the tone that Miss Gostrey had to devote another pause to the appreciation of it.
"And has he only HER?
I don't mean the bad woman in Paris," she quickly added—"for I assure you I shouldn't even at the best be disposed to allow him more than one.
But has he only his mother?"
"He has also a sister, older than himself and married; and they're both remarkably fine women."
"Very handsome, you mean?"
This promptitude—almost, as he might have thought, this precipitation, gave him a brief drop; but he came up again.
"Mrs. Newsome, I think, is handsome, though she's not of course, with a son of twenty-eight and a daughter of thirty, in her very first youth.
She married, however, extremely young."
"And is wonderful," Miss Gostrey asked, "for her age?"
Strether seemed to feel with a certain disquiet the pressure of it.
"I don't say she's wonderful.
Or rather," he went on the next moment, "I do say it.