"Ah his idea was simply what a man's idea always is—to put every effort off on the woman."
"The 'woman'—?" Strether slowly echoed.
"The woman he likes—and just in proportion as he likes her.
In proportion too—for shifting the trouble—as she likes HIM."
Strether followed it; then with an abruptness of his own:
"How much do you like Chad?"
"Just as much as THAT—to take all, with you, on myself."
But she got at once again away from this. "I've been trembling as if we were to stand or fall by what you may think of me; and I'm even now," she went on wonderfully, "drawing a long breath—and, yes, truly taking a great courage—from the hope that I don't in fact strike you as impossible."
"That's at all events, clearly," he observed after an instant, "the way I don't strike YOU."
"Well," she so far assented, "as you haven't yet said you WON'T have the little patience with me I ask for—"
"You draw splendid conclusions?
Perfectly.
But I don't understand them," Strether pursued.
"You seem to me to ask for much more than you need.
What, at the worst for you, what at the best for myself, can I after all do?
I can use no pressure that I haven't used.
You come really late with your request.
I've already done all that for myself the case admits of.
I've said my say, and here I am."
"Yes, here you are, fortunately!" Madame de Vionnet laughed. "Mrs. Newsome," she added in another tone, "didn't think you can do so little."
He had an hesitation, but he brought the words out.
"Well, she thinks so now."
"Do you mean by that—?" But she also hung fire.
"Do I mean what?"
She still rather faltered.
"Pardon me if I touch on it, but if I'm saying extraordinary things, why, perhaps, mayn't I?
Besides, doesn't it properly concern us to know?"
"To know what?" he insisted as after thus beating about the bush she had again dropped.
She made the effort.
"Has she given you up?"
He was amazed afterwards to think how simply and quietly he had met it.
"Not yet."
It was almost as if he were a trifle disappointed—had expected still more of her freedom.
But he went straight on. "Is that what Chad has told you will happen to me?"
She was evidently charmed with the way he took it.
"If you mean if we've talked of it—most certainly.
And the question's not what has had least to do with my wishing to see you."
"To judge if I'm the sort of man a woman CAN—?"
"Precisely," she exclaimed—"you wonderful gentleman!
I do judge—I HAVE judged.
A woman can't.
You're safe—with every right to be.
You'd be much happier if you'd only believe it."
Strether was silent a little; then he found himself speaking with a cynicism of confidence of which even at the moment the sources were strange to him.
"I try to believe it.
But it's a marvel," he exclaimed, "how YOU already get at it!"
Oh she was able to say. "Remember how much I was on the way to it through Mr. Newsome—before I saw you.
He thinks everything of your strength."
"Well, I can bear almost anything!" our friend briskly interrupted.
Deep and beautiful on this her smile came back, and with the effect of making him hear what he had said just as she had heard it.