"When they do come give them plenty of Miss Jeanne. Let Mamie see
her well."
She looked for a moment as if she placed them face to face.
"For Mamie to hate her?"
He had another of his corrective headshakes. "Mamie won't.
Trust THEM."
She looked at him hard, and then as if it were what she must always
come back to: "It's you I trust. But I was sincere," she said, "at
the hotel. I did, I do, want my child--"
"Well?"--Strether waited with deference while she appeared to hesitate
as to how to put it.
"Well, to do what she can for me."
Strether for a little met her eyes on it; after which something
that might have been unexpected to her came from him. "Poor little
duck!"
Not more expected for himself indeed might well have been her echo
of it. "Poor little duck! But she immensely wants herself," she
said, "to see our friend's cousin."
"Is that what she thinks her?"
"It's what we call the young lady."
He thought again; then with a laugh: "Well, your daughter will
help you."
And now at last he took leave of her, as he had been intending for
five minutes. But she went part of the way with him, accompanying
him out of the room and into the next and the next. Her noble old
apartment offered a succession of three, the first two of which
indeed, on entering, smaller than the last, but each with its faded
and formal air, enlarged the office of the antechamber and enriched
the sense of approach.
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