And how am I to do it? Perhaps you'll tell
me that."
"Simply tell her the truth."
"And what do you call the truth?"
"Well, any truth--about us all--that you see yourself. I leave it
to you."
"Thank you very much. I like," Strether laughed with a slight
harshness, "the way you leave things!"
But she insisted kindly, gently, as if it wasn't so bad. "Be
perfectly honest. Tell her all."
"All?" he oddly echoed.
"Tell her the simple truth," Madame de Vionnet again pleaded.
"But what is the simple truth? The simple truth is exactly what I'm
trying to discover."
She looked about a while, but presently she came back to him. "Tell
her, fully and clearly, about US."
Strether meanwhile had been staring. "You and your daughter?"
"Yes--little Jeanne and me. Tell her," she just slightly quavered,
"you like us."
"And what good will that do me? Or rather"--he caught himself up--
"what good will it do YOU?"
She looked graver. "None, you believe, really?"
Strether debated. "She didn't send me out to 'like' you."
"Oh," she charmingly contended, "she sent you out to face the
facts."
He admitted after an instant that there was something in that. "But
how can I face them till I know what they are? Do you want him," he
then braced himself to ask, "to marry your daughter?"
She gave a headshake as noble as it was prompt.
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