"Yes; how much more she does it," Strether
gravely reflected, "than I help HER!" It all came over him as with
the near presence of the beauty, the grace, the intense,
dissimulated spirit with which he had, as he said, been putting off
contact. "SHE has courage."
"Ah she has courage!" Miss Barrace quite agreed; and it was as if
for a moment they saw the quantity in each other's face.
But indeed the whole thing was present. "How much she must care!"
"Ah there it is. She does care. But it isn't, is it," Miss
Barrace considerately added, "as if you had ever had any doubt of
that?"
Strether seemed suddenly to like to feel that he really never had.
"Why of course it's the whole point."
"Voila!" Miss Barrace smiled.
"It's why one came out," Strether went on. "And it's why one has
stayed so long. And it's also"--he abounded--"why one's going
home. It's why, it's why--"
"It's why everything!" she concurred. "It's why she might be
to-night--for all she looks and shows, and for all your friend 'Jim'
does--about twenty years old. That's another of her ideas; to be
for him, and to be quite easily and charmingly, as young as a
little girl."
Strether assisted at his distance. "'For him'? For Chad--?"
"For Chad, in a manner, naturally, always.
Pages:
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548