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Rh friend, who knew his way about, would come in at his own right moment. His temporary absence, moreover, seemed, as never yet, to make the right moment for Miss Gostrey. Strether had been waiting till to-night to get back from her in some mirrored form her impressions and conclusions. She had elected, as they said, to see little Bilham once, but now she had seen him twice and had, nevertheless, not said more than a word.

Waymarsh meanwhile sat opposite him, with their hostess between, and Miss Gostrey described herself as an instructor of youth, introducing her little charges to a work that was one of the glories of literature. The glory was, happily, unobjectionable, and the little charges were candid. For herself, she had travelled that road, and she merely waited on their innocence. But she referred in due time to their absent friend, whom it was clear they should have to give up. "He either won't have got your note at all, or you won't have got his. He has had some kind of hindrance, and, of course, for that matter, you know, a man never writes about coming to a box." She spoke as if, with her look, it might have been Waymarsh who had written to the youth, and the latter's face showed a mixture of austerity and anguish. She went on, however, as if to meet this. "He's far and away, you know, the best of them."

"The best of whom, ma'am?"

"Why, of all the long procession—the boys, the girls, or the old men and old women as they sometimes really are; the hope, as one may say, of our country. They've all passed, year after year, but there has been no one in particular I've ever wanted to stop. I feel—don't you—that I want to stop little Bilham, he's so exactly right as he is." She continued to talk to Waymarsh. "He's too delightful. If he'll only not spoil it! But they always will; they always do; they always have."

"I don't think Waymarsh knows," Strether said after a moment, "quite what it's open to Bilham to spoil."

"It can't be a good American," Waymarsh lucidly enough replied, "for it didn't strike me the young man had developed much in that shape."

"Ah," Miss Gostrey sighed, "the name of the good