Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/320

314 "It has, indeed," Maria laughed, "served women's purposes before!"

"Yes—for giving in. But I doubt if the idea—as an idea—has ever up to now answered so well for holding out. That's her tribute to the ideal—we each have our own. It's her romance—and it seems to me better, on the whole, than mine. To have it in Paris, too," he explained "on this classic ground, in this charged, infectious air, with so sudden an intensity: well, it's more than she expected. She has had, in short, to recognise the breaking out for her of a real affinity—and with everything to enhance the drama."

Miss Gostrey followed. "Jim, for instance?"

"Jim. Jim hugely enhances. Jim was made to enhance. And then Mrs. Waymarsh. It's the crowning touch—it supplies the colour. He's positively separated."

"And she herself unfortunately isn't—that supplies the colour too." Miss Gostrey was all there. But somehow! "Is he in love?"

Strether looked at her a long time; then looked all about the room; then came a little nearer. "Will you never tell anyone in the world as long as ever you live?"

"Never." It was charming.

"He thinks Sarah really is. But he has no fear," Strether hastened to add.

"Of her being demoralised by it?"

"Of his being. He likes it, but he knows she can hold out. He's helping her, he's floating her over, by kindness."

Maria considered it in the light of comedy. "Floating her over in champagne? The kindness of dining her, nose to nose, at the hour when all Paris is crowding to profane delights, and in the—well, in the great temple, as one hears of it, of pleasure?"

"That's just it, for both of them," Strether insisted—"and all of a supreme innocence. The Parisian place, the feverish hour, the putting before her of a hundred francs' worth of food and drink, which they'll scarcely touch—all that's the dear man's own romance; the expensive kind, expensive in francs and centimes, in which he abounds. And the circus afterwards—which is cheaper, but which