"Oh if you didn't do her justice--!"
"I SHOULD be a beast, eh?"
Strether devoted no time to saying what he would be; THAT, visibly,
would take them far. If there was nothing for it but to repeat,
however, repetition was no mistake. "You owe her everything--very
much more than she can ever owe you. You've in other words duties
to her, of the most positive sort; and I don't see what other
duties--as the others are presented to you--can be held to go
before them."
Chad looked at him with a smile. "And you know of course about the
others, eh?--since it's you yourself who have done the presenting."
"Much of it--yes--and to the best of my ability. But not all--from
the moment your sister took my place."
"She didn't," Chad returned. "Sally took a place, certainly; but
it was never, I saw from the first moment, to be yours. No one--
with us--will ever take yours. It wouldn't be possible."
"Ah of course," sighed Strether, "I knew it. I believe you're
right. No one in the world, I imagine, was ever so portentously
solemn. There I am," he added with another sigh, as if weary
enough, on occasion, of this truth. "I was made so."
Chad appeared for a little to consider the way he was made;
he might for this purpose have measured him up and down.
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