Bilham have? Do you mean they'll MARRY
for you?"
"I mean that, by the same blessed law, it won't matter a grain if
they don't--I shan't have in the least to worry."
She saw as usual what he meant. "And Mr. Jim?--who goes for him?"
"Oh," Strether had to admit, "I couldn't manage THAT. He's
thrown, as usual, on the world; the world which, after all, by his
account--for he has prodigious adventures--seems very good to him.
He fortunately--'over here,' as he says--finds the world
everywhere; and his most prodigious adventure of all," he went on,
"has been of course of the last few days."
Miss Gostrey, already knowing, instantly made the connexion. "He
has seen Marie de Vionnet again?"
"He went, all by himself, the day after Chad's party--didn't I
tell you?--to tea with her. By her invitation--all alone."
"Quite like yourself!" Maria smiled.
"Oh but he's more wonderful about her than I am!" And then as his
friend showed how she could believe it, filling it out, fitting it
on to old memories of the wonderful woman: "What I should have
liked to manage would have been HER going."
"To Switzerland with the party?"
"For Jim--and for symmetry. If it had been workable moreover for
a fortnight she'd have gone.
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