Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/155

Rh sorts. And yet it's always as charming as this; it's as if, by something in the air, our squalor didn't show. It puts us all back—into the last century."

"I'm afraid," Strether said, amused, "that it puts me, rather, forward: oh, ever so far!"

"Into the next? But isn't that only," little Bilham asked, "because you're really of the century before?"

"The century before the last? Thank you!" Strether laughed. "If I ask you about some of the ladies it can't be, then, that I may hope, as such a specimen of the rococo, to please them."

"On the contrary, they adore—we all adore here—the rococo, and where is there a better setting for it than the whole thing, the pavilion and the garden, together? There are lots of people," little Bilham smiled as he glanced round, "with collections. You'll be secured!"

It made Strether, for a moment, give himself again to contemplation. There were faces he scarce knew what to make of. Were they charming, or were they only strange? He mightn't talk politics, yet he suspected a Pole or two. The upshot was the question at the back of his head from the moment his friend had joined him. "Have Mme. de Vionnet and her daughter arrived?"

"I haven't seen them yet, but Miss Gostrey has come. She's in the pavilion looking at objects. One can see she's a collector," little Bilham added without offence.

"Oh yes, she's a collector, and I knew she was to come. Is Mme. de Vionnet a collector?" Strether went on.

"Rather, I believe; almost celebrated." The young man met, on it, a little, his friend's eyes. "I happen to know—from Chad, whom I saw last night—that they've come back; but only yesterday. He wasn't sure—up to the last. This, accordingly," little Bilham went on, "will be—if they are here—their first appearance after their return."

Strether, very quickly, turned these things over. "Chad told you last night? To me he, on our way here, said nothing about it."

"But did you ask him?"

Strether did him justice. "I dare say not."

"Well," said little Bilham, "you're not a person to whom