That sense had
already been so well fed by the situation about them that she had
quitted the other room, forsaken the music, dropped out of the
play, abandoned, in a word, the stage itself, that she might stand
a minute behind the scenes with Strether and so perhaps figure as
one of the famous augurs replying, behind the oracle, to the wink
of the other. Seated near him presently where little Bilham had
sat, she replied in truth to many things; beginning as soon as he
had said to her--what he hoped he said without fatuity--"All you
ladies are extraordinarily kind to me."
She played her long handle, which shifted her observation; she saw
in an instant all the absences that left them free. "How can we be
anything else? But isn't that exactly your plight? 'We ladies'--
oh we're nice, and you must be having enough of us! As one of us,
you know, I don't pretend I'm crazy about us. But Miss Gostrey at
least to-night has left you alone, hasn't she?" With which she
again looked about as if Maria might still lurk.
"Oh yes," said Strether; "she's only sitting up for me at home."
And then as this elicited from his companion her gay "Oh, oh, oh!"
he explained that he meant sitting up in suspense and prayer. "We
thought it on the whole better she shouldn't be present; and
either way of course it's a terrible worry for her.
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