I
should like much better," he laughed, "to see you fight for me."
She met him, Mrs. Pocock, on this, with an arrest of speech--with a
certain breathlessness, as he immediately fancied, on the score of
a freedom for which she wasn't quite prepared. It had flared up--
for all the harm he had intended by it--because, confoundedly, he
didn't want any more to be afraid about her than he wanted to be
afraid about Madame de Vionnet. He had never, naturally, called her
anything but Sarah at home, and though he had perhaps never quite
so markedly invoked her as his "dear," that was somehow partly
because no occasion had hitherto laid so effective a trap for it.
But something admonished him now that it was too late--unless
indeed it were possibly too early; and that he at any rate
shouldn't have pleased Mrs. Pocock the more by it. "Well, Mr.
Strether--!" she murmured with vagueness, yet with sharpness, while
her crimson spot burned a trifle brighter and he was aware that
this must be for the present the limit of her response. Madame de
Vionnet had already, however, come to his aid, and Waymarsh, as if
for further participation, moved again back to them. It was true
that the aid rendered by Madame de Vionnet was questionable; it was
a sign that, for all one might confess to with her, and for all she
might complain of not enjoying, she could still insidiously show
how much of the material of conversation had accumulated between
them.
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