Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/309

Rh wants to make, it's that she didn't come out to be narrow. We shall feel at least that."

"Oh," she groaned, "the quantity we seem likely to 'feel'! But what becomes, in these conditions, of the girl?"

"Of Mamie—if we're all provided? Ah, for that," said Strether, "you can trust Chad."

"To be, you mean, all right to her?"

"To pay her every attention as soon as he has polished off Jim. He wants what Jim can give him—and what Jim really won't—though he has had it all, and more than all, from me. He wants, in short, his own personal impression, and he'll get it—strong. But as soon as he has got it Mamie won't suffer."

"Oh, Mamie mustn't suffer!" Mme. de Vionnet soothingly emphasised.

But Strether could assure her. "Don't fear. As soon as he has done with Jim, Jim will fall to me. And then you'll see."

It was as if, in a moment, she saw already; yet she still waited. Then, "Is she really quite charming?" she asked.

He had got up with his last words and gathered in his hat and gloves. "I don't know; I'm watching. I'm studying the case, as it were—and I dare say I shall be able to tell you."

She wondered. "Is it a case?"

"Yes—I think so. At any rate I shall see."

"But haven't you known her before?"

"Yes," he smiled—"but somehow at home she wasn't a case. She has become one since." It was as if he made it out for himself. "She has become one here."

"So very, very soon?"

He hesitated, laughing. "Not sooner than I did."

"And you became one?"

"Very, very soon. The day I arrived."

Her intelligent eyes showed her thought of it. "Ah, but the day you arrived you met Maria. Whom has Miss Pocock met?"

He paused again, but he brought it out. "Hasn't she met Chad?"