Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/190

184 "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, more quickly, 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, with me, the little patience 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!" Mme. de Vionnet laughed. "Mrs. Newsome," she added in another tone, "didn't think you can do so little."

He had a 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 am 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?"