She's ready"--he followed up his
renewed vision of her--"for anything."
Miss Gostrey went with him a minute. "She's too perfect!"
"She WILL, I think," he pursued, "go to-night to the station."
"To see him off?"
"With Chad--marvellously--as part of their general attention. And
she does it"--it kept before him--"with a light, light grace, a
free, free gaiety, that may well softly bewilder Mr. Pocock."
It kept her so before him that his companion had after an instant a
friendly comment. "As in short it has softly bewildered a saner
man. Are you really in love with her?" Maria threw off.
"It's of no importance I should know," he replied. "It matters so
little--has nothing to do, practically, with either of us."
"All the same"--Maria continued to smile--"they go, the five, as I
understand you, and you and Madame de Vionnet stay."
"Oh and Chad." To which Strether added: "And you."
"Ah 'me'!"--she gave a small impatient wail again, in which
something of the unreconciled seemed suddenly to break out. "I
don't stay, it somehow seems to me, much to my advantage. In the
presence of all you cause to pass before me I've a tremendous sense
of privation."
Strether hesitated. "But your privation, your keeping out of
everything, has been--hasn't it?--by your own choice.
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