So slim and fresh and fair, she had
yet put forth this perfection; so that for really believing it of
her, for seeing her to any such developed degree as a mother,
comparison would be urgent. Well, what was it now but fairly thrust
upon him? "Mamma wishes me to tell you before we go," the girl
said, "that she hopes very much you'll come to see us very soon.
She has something important to say to you."
"She quite reproaches herself," Chad helpfully explained: "you were
interesting her so much when she accidentally suffered you to be
interrupted."
"Ah don't mention it!" Strether murmured, looking kindly from one
to the other and wondering at many things.
"And I'm to ask you for myself," Jeanne continued with her hands
clasped together as if in some small learnt prayer--"I'm to ask you
for myself if you won't positively come."
"Leave it to me, dear--I'll take care of it!" Chad genially
declared in answer to this, while Strether himself almost held his
breath. What was in the girl was indeed too soft, too unknown for
direct dealing; so that one could only gaze at it as at a picture,
quite staying one's own hand. But with Chad he was now on ground--
Chad he could meet; so pleasant a confidence in that and in
everything did the young man freely exhale.
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