Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/154

148 that side—I believe it's fabulous; they never give him up. Yet he keeps them down: no one knows how he manages; it's too beautiful and bland. Never too many—and a mighty good thing too; just a perfect choice. But there are not in any way many bores; it has always been so; he has some secret. It's extraordinary. And you don't find it out. He's the same to everyone. He doesn't ask questions."

"Ah, doesn't he?" Strether laughed.

Bilham met it with all his candour. "How then should I be here?"

"Oh, for what you tell me. You're part of the perfect choice."

Well, the young man took in the scene. "It seems rather good to-day."

Strether followed the direction of his eyes. "Are they all, this time, femmes du monde?"

Little Bilham showed his competence. "Pretty well."

This was a category our friend had a feeling for; a light, romantic and mysterious, on the feminine element, in which he enjoyed for a little watching it. "Are there any Poles?"

His companion considered. "I think I make out a Portuguese. But I've seen Turks."

Strether wondered, desiring justice. "They seem, the women, very harmonious."

"Oh, in closer quarters they come out!" And then, while Strether was aware of fearing closer quarters, though giving himself again to the harmonies, "Well," little Bilham went on, "it is, at the worst, rather good, you know. If you like it, you feel it, this way, that shows you're not in the least out. But you always know things," he handsomely added, "immediately."

Strether liked it and felt it only too much; so "I say, don't lay traps for me!" he rather helplessly murmured.

"Well," the young man returned, "he's wonderfully kind to us."

"To us Americans, you mean?"

"Oh no—he doesn't know anything about that. That's half the battle here—that you can never hear politics. We don't talk them. I mean to poor young wretches of all