Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/306

300 She visibly wondered. "Then how about Jim?"

Strether took a turn before he answered. "Hasn't he given you Jim? I mean, before this, done him for you?" He was a little at a loss. "Doesn't he tell you things?"

She hesitated. "No"—and their eyes once more gave and took—"not as you do. You, somehow, make me see them—or at least feel them. And I haven't asked too much," she added. "I've wanted so of late not to worry him."

"Ah, for that, so have I," he said, with encouraging assent; so that—as if she had answered everything—they were briefly sociable on it. It threw him back on his other thought, with which he took another turn, stopping again, however, presently with something of a glow. "You see Jim's really immense. I think it will be Jim who'll do it."

She wondered. "Get hold of him?"

"No; just the other thing. Counteract Sarah's spell." And he showed now—our friend—how far he had worked it out. "Jim's intensely cynical."

"Oh dear Jim!" Mme. de Vionnet vaguely smiled.

"Yes, literally, dear Jim! He's awful. What he wants,—heaven forgive him—is to help us."

"You mean"—she was eager—"help me?"

"Well, Chad and me in the first place. But he throws you in too, though without, as yet, seeing you much. Only, so far as he does see you—if you don't mind—he sees you as very advanced."

"'Advanced'?" She wanted it all.

"A regular bad one, though, of course, of a tremendously superior kind. Dreadful, delightful, irresistible."

"Ah dear Jim! I should like to know him. I must."

"Yes, naturally. But will it do? You may, you know," Strether suggested, "disappoint him."

She was droll and humble about it. "I can but try. But my wickedness then," she went on, "is my recommendation for him?"

"Your wickedness and the charms with which, in such a degree as yours, he associates it. He understands, you see, that Chad and I have, above all, wanted to have a good time, and his view is simple and sharp. Nothing will persuade him—in the light, that is, of my behaviour—