"
"I've certainly so far done it," Strether said, "as that you needn't
fear the effect, or the appearance of coming between us. There's
nothing between us now but what we ourselves have put there, and
not an inch of room for anything else whatever. Therefore you're
only beautifully WITH us as always--though doubtless now, if she
has talked to you, rather more with us than less. Of course if
she came," he added, "it was to talk to you."
"It was to talk to me," Maria returned; on which he was further
sure that she was practically in possession of what he himself hadn't
yet told her. He was even sure she was in possession of things
he himself couldn't have told; for the consciousness of them was
now all in her face and accompanied there with a shade of sadness
that marked in her the close of all uncertainties. It came out for
him more than ever yet that she had had from the first a knowledge
she believed him not to have had, a knowledge the sharp acquisition
of which might be destined to make a difference for him. The
difference for him might not inconceivably be an arrest of his
independence and a change in his attitude--in other words a
revulsion in favour of the principles of Woollett. She had really
prefigured the possibility of a shock that would send him swinging
back to Mrs.
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