I have my brother--and these
American friends. And then you know I've been to Paris. I KNOW
Paris," said Sally Pocock in a tone that breathed a certain chill
on Strether's heart.
"Ah but a woman, in this tiresome place where everything's always
changing, a woman of good will," Madame de Vionnet threw off, "can
always help a woman. I'm sure you 'know'--but we know perhaps
different things." She too, visibly, wished to make no mistake; but
it was a fear of a different order and more kept out of sight. She
smiled in welcome at Strether; she greeted him more familiarly than
Mrs. Pocock; she put out her hand to him without moving from her
place; and it came to him in the course of a minute and in the
oddest way that--yes, positively--she was giving him over to ruin.
She was all kindness and ease, but she couldn't help so giving him;
she was exquisite, and her being just as she was poured for Sarah a
sudden rush of meaning into his own equivocations. How could she
know how she was hurting him? She wanted to show as simple and
humble--in the degree compatible with operative charm; but it was
just this that seemed to put him on her side. She struck him as
dressed, as arranged, as prepared infinitely to conciliate--with
the very poetry of good taste in her view of the conditions of her
early call.
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