"If I see a little more of her, as I hope
I shall, I think she'll like me enough--for she seemed to like me
to-day--to want me to tell her."
"And SHALL you?"
"Perfectly. I shall tell her the matter with her is that she wants
only too much to do right. To do right for her, naturally," said
Mamie, "is to please."
"Her mother, do you mean?"
"Her mother first."
Strether waited. "And then?"
"Well, 'then'--Mr. Newsome."
There was something really grand for him in the serenity of this
reference. "And last only Monsieur de Montbron?"
"Last only"--she good-humouredly kept it up.
Strether considered. "So that every one after all then will be
suited?"
She had one of her few hesitations, but it was a question only of a
moment; and it was her nearest approach to being explicit with him
about what was between them. "I think I can speak for myself. I
shall be."
It said indeed so much, told such a story of her being ready to
help him, so committed to him that truth, in short, for such use as
he might make of it toward those ends of his own with which,
patiently and trustfully, she had nothing to do--it so fully
achieved all this that he appeared to himself simply to meet it in
its own spirit by the last frankness of admiration.
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