"
"The very thing itself."
"And what it comes to then," Strether went on, "is that poor awful
Chad is simply too good for her."
"Ah too good was what he was after all to be; but it was she
herself, and she herself only, who was to have made him so."
It hung beautifully together, but with still a loose end. "Wouldn't
he do for her even if he should after all break--"
"With his actual influence?" Oh little Bilham had for this
enquiry the sharpest of all his controls. "How can he 'do'--on any
terms whatever--when he's flagrantly spoiled?"
Strether could only meet the question with his passive, his
receptive pleasure. "Well, thank goodness, YOU'RE not! You
remain for her to save, and I come back, on so beautiful and full a
demonstration, to my contention of just now--that of your showing
distinct signs of her having already begun."
The most he could further say to himself--as his young friend turned
away--was that the charge encountered for the moment no renewed
denial. Little Bilham, taking his course back to the music, only
shook his good-natured ears an instant, in the manner of a terrier
who has got wet; while Strether relapsed into the sense--which had
for him in these days most of comfort--that he was free to believe
in anything that from hour to hour kept him going.
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