"Haven't I sufficiently showed you how I admire ANY pretty girl?';
Her interest in his problem was by this time such that it scarce
left her freedom, and she kept close to the facts. "I supposed
that at Woollett you wanted them--what shall I call it?--
blameless. I mean your young men for your pretty girls."
"So did I!" Strether confessed. "But you strike there a curious
fact--the fact that Woollett too accommodates itself to the spirit
of the age and the increasing mildness of manners. Everything
changes, and I hold that our situation precisely marks a date. We
SHOULD prefer them blameless, but we have to make the best of them
as we find them. Since the spirit of the age and the increasing
mildness send them so much more to Paris--"
"You've to take them back as they come. When they DO come. Bon!"
Once more she embraced it all, but she had a moment of thought.
"Poor Chad!"
"Ah," said Strether cheerfully "Mamie will save him!"
She was looking away, still in her vision, and she spoke with
impatience and almost as if he hadn't understood her. "YOU'LL save
him. That's who'll save him."
"Oh but with Mamie's aid. Unless indeed you mean," he added, "that
I shall effect so much more with yours!"
It made her at last again look at him.
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