I mean the measure of his
attachment. She asked for a sign, and he thought of that one. There
it is."
"A concession to her jealousy?"
Strether pulled up. "Yes--call it that. Make it lurid--for that
makes my problem richer."
"Certainly, let us have it lurid--for I quite agree with you that
we want none of our problems poor. But let us also have it clear.
Can he, in the midst of such a preoccupation, or on the heels of
it, have seriously cared for Jeanne?--cared, I mean, as a young man
at liberty would have cared?"
Well, Strether had mastered it. "I think he can have thought it
would be charming if he COULD care. It would be nicer."
"Nicer than being tied up to Marie?"
"Yes--than the discomfort of an attachment to a person he can never
hope, short of a catastrophe, to marry. And he was quite right,"
said Strether. "It would certainly have been nicer. Even when a
thing's already nice there mostly is some other thing that would
have been nicer--or as to which we wonder if it wouldn't. But his
question was all the same a dream. He COULDn't care in that way. He
IS tied up to Marie. The relation is too special and has gone too
far. It's the very basis, and his recent lively contribution toward
establishing Jeanne in life has been his definite and final
acknowledgement to Madame de Vionnet that he has ceased squirming.
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