"
She recalled. "I never supposed you believed it was. Yet," she
continued, "if you didn't guess it that was just what helped you."
He looked away from her on this; he indulged, so far as space
permitted, in one of his slow absences. "I've often thought of it,
but never to feel that I could guess it. And you see the
consideration with which I've treated you in never asking till now."
"Now then why DO you ask?"
"To show you how I miss you when you're not here, and what it does
for me."
"It doesn't seem to have done," she laughed, "all it might!
However," she added, "if you've really never guessed the truth I'll
tell it you."
"I've never guessed it," Strether declared.
"Never?"
"Never."
"Well then I dashed off, as you say, so as not to have the
confusion of being there if Marie de Vionnet should tell you
anything to my detriment."
He looked as if he considerably doubted. "You even then would have
had to face it on your return."
"Oh if I had found reason to believe it something very bad I'd have
left you altogether."
"So then," he continued, "it was only on guessing she had been on
the whole merciful that you ventured back?"
Maria kept it together. "I owe her thanks. Whatever her temptation
she didn't separate us.
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