Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/447

Rh to tell her that you do still so see her!" Miss Gostrey, in short, offered herself for service to the end.

It was an offer he could estimate; but he decided. "She knows perfectly how I see her."

"Not favourably enough, she mentioned to me, to wish ever to see her again. She told me you had taken final leave of her. She says you've done with her."

"So I have."

Maria had a pause; then she spoke as if for conscience. "She wouldn't have done with you. She feels she has lost you—yet that she might have been better for you."

"Oh, she has been quite good enough!" Strether laughed.

"She thinks you and she might at any rate have been friends."

"We might certainly. That's just"—he continued to laugh—"why I'm going."

It was as if Maria could feel with this then, at last, that she had done her best for each. But she had still an idea. "Shall I tell her that?"

"No. Tell her nothing."

"Very well then." To which, in the next breath, Miss Gostrey added "Poor dear thing!"

Her friend wondered; then with raised eyebrows: "Me?"

"Oh, no. Marie."

He accepted the correction, but he wondered still. "Are you so sorry for her as that?"

It made her think a moment—made her even speak with a smile. But she didn't really retract. "I'm sorry for us all!"