"Has Mrs. Newsome at all given way--?"
"'Given way'?"--Jim echoed it with the practical derision of his
sense of a long past.
"Under the strain, I mean, of hope deferred, of disappointment
repeated and thereby intensified."
"Oh is she prostrate, you mean?"--he had his categories in hand.
"Why yes, she's prostrate--just as Sally is. But they're never so
lively, you know, as when they're prostrate."
"Ah Sarah's prostrate?" Strether vaguely murmured.
"It's when they're prostrate that they most sit up."
"And Mrs. Newsome's sitting up?"
"All night, my boy--for YOU!" And Jim fetched him, with a vulgar
little guffaw, a thrust that gave relief to the picture. But he
had got what he wanted. He felt on the spot that this WAS the real
word from Woollett. "So don't you go home!" Jim added while he
alighted and while his friend, letting him profusely pay the
cabman, sat on in a momentary muse. Strether wondered if that
were the real word too.
III
As the door of Mrs. Pocock's salon was pushed open for him, the
next day, well before noon, he was reached by a voice with a
charming sound that made him just falter before crossing the
threshold. Madame de Vionnet was already on the field, and this
gave the drama a quicker pace than he felt it as yet--though his
suspense had increased--in the power of any act of his own to do.
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