Consider her and judge her only in Chad."
He had the courage at least of his companion's logic. "Because
then I shall like her?" He almost looked, with his quick imagination
as if he already did, though seeing at once also the full extent
of how little it would suit his book. "But is that what I came
out for?"
She had to confess indeed that it wasn't. But there was something
else. "Don't make up your mind. There are all sorts of things. You
haven't seen him all."
This on his side Strether recognised; but his acuteness none the
less showed him the danger. "Yes, but if the more I see the better
he seems?"
Well, she found something. "That may be--but his disavowal of her
isn't, all the same, pure consideration. There's a hitch." She
made it out. "It's the effort to sink her."
Strether winced at the image. "To 'sink'--?"
"Well, I mean there's a struggle, and a part of it is just what he
hides. Take time--that's the only way not to make some mistake
that you'll regret. Then you'll see. He does really want to shake
her off."
Our friend had by this time so got into the vision that he almost
gasped. "After all she has done for him?"
Miss Gostrey gave him a look which broke the next moment into a
wonderful smile.
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