Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/54

48 "I see. But what I mean is," Miss Gostrey amended, "do you also look after the business?"

"Oh no, I don't touch the business."

"Only everything else?"

"Well, yes—some things."

"As for instance?"

Strether obligingly thought. "Well, the Review."

"The Review?—you have a Review?"

"Certainly, Woollett has a Review—which Mrs. Newsome, for the most part, magnificently pays for, and which I, not at all magnificently, edit. My name's on the cover," Strether pursued, "and I'm really rather disappointed and hurt that you seem never to have heard of it."

She neglected for a moment this grievance. "And what kind of a Review is it?"

His serenity was not completely restored. "Well, it's green."

"Do you mean in political colour as they say here?—in thought."

"No; I mean the cover's green—of the most lovely shade."

"And with Mrs. Newsome's name on it too?"

He hesitated. "Oh, as for that, you must judge if she peeps out. She's behind the whole thing; but she's of a delicacy and a discretion!"

Miss Gostrey took it all. "I'm sure. She would be. I don't underrate her. She must be rather a swell."

"Oh yes, she's rather a swell!"

"A Woollett swell—bon! I like the idea of a Woollett swell. And you must be rather one too, to be so mixed up with her."

"Ah no," said Strether, "that's not the way it works."

But she had already taken him up. "The way it works—you needn't tell me!—is of course that you efface yourself."

"With my name on the cover?" he lucidly objected.

"Ah, but you don't put it on for yourself."

"I beg your pardon—that's exactly what I do put it on for. It's exactly the thing that I'm reduced to doing for myself. It seems to rescue a little, you see, from the wreck of hopes and ambitions, the refuse heap of