He was doubtless not
to know till afterwards, on turning them over in thought, of how
many elements his impression was composed; but he none the less
felt, as he sat with the charming girl, the signal growth of a
confidence. For she WAS charming, when all was said--and none the
less so for the visible habit and practice of freedom and fluency.
She was charming, he was aware, in spite of the fact that if he
hadn't found her so he would have found her something he should
have been in peril of expressing as "funny." Yes, she was funny,
wonderful Mamie, and without dreaming it; she was bland, she was
bridal--with never, that he could make out as yet, a bridegroom to
support it; she was handsome and portly and easy and chatty, soft
and sweet and almost disconcertingly reassuring. She was dressed,
if we might so far discriminate, less as a young lady than as an
old one--had an old one been supposable to Strether as so committed
to vanity; the complexities of her hair missed moreover also the
looseness of youth; and she had a mature manner of bending a
little, as to encourage and reward, while she held neatly together
in front of her a pair of strikingly polished hands: the
combination of all of which kept up about her the glamour of her
"receiving," placed her again perpetually between the windows and
within sound of the ice-cream plates, suggested the enumeration of
all the names, all the Mr.
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