第65章

I do take my stand on my sufficiency.But I know, I confess,"she went on, "strange people.I don't know how it happens;I don't do it on purpose; it seems to be my doom--as if I were always one of their habits: it's wonderful! I dare say moreover,"she pursued with an interested gravity, "that I do, that we all do here, run too much to mere eye.But how can it be helped?

We're all looking at each other--and in the light of Paris one sees what things resemble.That's what the light of Paris seems always to show.It's the fault of the light of Paris--dear old light!""Dear old Paris!" little Bilham echoed.

"Everything, every one shows," Miss Barrace went on.

"But for what they really are?" Strether asked.

"Oh I like your Boston 'reallys'! But sometimes--yes.""Dear old Paris then!" Strether resignedly sighed while for a moment they looked at each other.Then he broke out: "Does Madame de Vionnet do that? I mean really show for what she is?"Her answer was prompt."She's charming.She's perfect.""Then why did you a minute ago say 'Oh, oh, oh!' at her name?"She easily remembered."Why just because--! She's wonderful.""Ah she too?"--Strether had almost a groan.

But Miss Barrace had meanwhile perceived relief."Why not put your question straight to the person who can answer it best?""No," said little Bilham; "don't put any question; wait, rather--it will be much more fun--to judge for yourself.He has come to take you to her."II

On which Strether saw that Chad was again at hand, and he afterwards scarce knew, absurd as it may seem, what had then quickly occurred.The moment concerned him, he felt, more deeply than he could have explained, and he had a subsequent passage of speculation as to whether, on walking off with Chad, he hadn't looked either pale or red.The only thing he was clear about was that, luckily, nothing indiscreet had in fact been said and that Chad himself was more than ever, in Miss Barrace's great sense, wonderful.It was one of the connexions--though really why it should be, after all, was none so apparent--in which the whole change in him came out as most striking.Strether recalled as they approached the house that he had impressed him that first night as knowing how to enter a box.Well, he impressed him scarce less now as knowing how to make a presentation.It did something for Strether's own quality--marked it as estimated; so that our poor friend, conscious and passive, really seemed to feel himself quite handed over and delivered; absolutely, as he would have said, made a present of, given away.As they reached the house a young woman, about to come forth, appeared, unaccompanied, on the steps; at the exchange with whom of a word on Chad's part Strether immediately perceived that, obligingly, kindly, she was there to meet them.

Chad had left her in the house, but she had afterwards come halfway and then the next moment had joined them in the garden.

Her air of youth, for Strether, was at first almost disconcerting, while his second impression was, not less sharply, a degree of relief at there not having just been, with the others, any freedom used about her.It was upon him at a touch that she was no subject for that, and meanwhile, on Chad's introducing him, she had spoken to him, very simply and gently, in an English clearly of the easiest to her, yet unlike any other he had ever heard.It wasn't as if she tried; nothing, he could see after they had been a few minutes together, was as if she tried; but her speech, charming correct and odd, was like a precaution against her passing for a Pole.There were precautions, he seemed indeed to see, only when there were really dangers.

Later on he was to feel many more of them, but by that time he was to feel other things besides.She was dressed in black, but in black that struck him as light and transparent; she was exceedingly fair, and, though she was as markedly slim, her face had a roundness, with eyes far apart and a little strange.

Her smile was natural and dim; her hat not extravagant; he had only perhaps a sense of the clink, beneath her fine black sleeves, of more gold bracelets and bangles than he had ever seen a lady wear.

Chad was excellently free and light about their encounter; it was one of the occasions on which Strether most wished he himself might have arrived at such ease and such humour: "Here you are then, face to face at last; you're made for each other--vous allez voir; and I bless your union." It was indeed, after he had gone off, as if he had been partly serious too.This latter motion had been determined by an enquiry from him about "Jeanne"; to which her mother had replied that she was probably still in the house with Miss Gostrey, to whom she had lately committed her."Ah but you know," the young man had rejoined, "he must see her"; with which, while Strether pricked up his ears, he had started as if to bring her, leaving the other objects of his interest together.

Strether wondered to find Miss Gostrey already involved, feeling that he missed a link; but feeling also, with small delay, how much he should like to talk with her of Madame de Vionnet on this basis of evidence.