"Oh 'me'--
after all!"
He stood before her so exhilarated by his demonstration that he
could fairly be jocular. "Everything's comparative. You're better
than THAT."
"You"--she could but answer him--"are better than anything." But
she had another thought. "WILL Mrs. Pocock come to me?"
"Oh yes--she'll do that. As soon, that is, as my friend Waymarsh--
HER friend now--leaves her leisure."
She showed an interest. "Is he so much her friend as that?"
"Why, didn't you see it all at the hotel?"
"Oh"--she was amused--"'all' is a good deal to say. I don't know--
I forget. I lost myself in HER."
"You were splendid," Strether returned--"but 'all' isn't a good
deal to say: it's only a little. Yet it's charming so far as it
goes. She wants a man to herself."
"And hasn't she got you?"
"Do you think she looked at me--or even at you--as if she had?"
Strether easily dismissed that irony. "Every one, you see, must
strike her as having somebody. You've got Chad--and Chad has
got you."
"I see"--she made of it what she could. "And you've got Maria."
Well, he on his side accepted that. "I've got Maria. And Maria has
got me. So it goes."
"But Mr. Jim--whom has he got?"
"Oh he has got--or it's as IF he had--the whole place.
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