e way to become a monopoly. It's a little thing
they make--make better, it appears, than other people can, or than
other people, at any rate, do. Mr. Newsome, being a man of ideas, at
least in that particular line," Strether explained, "put them on it
with great effect, and gave the place altogether, in his time, an
immense lift."

"It's a place in itself?"

"Well, quite a number of buildings; almost a little industrial colony.
But above all it's a thing. The article produced."

"And what IS the article produced?"

Strether looked about him as in slight reluctance to say; then the
curtain, which he saw about to rise, came to his aid. "I'll tell you
next time." But when the next time came he only said he'd tell her
later on--after they should have left the theatre; for she had
immediately reverted to their topic, and even for himself the picture
of the stage was now overlaid with another image. His postponements,
however, made her wonder--wonder if the article referred to were
anything bad. And she explained that she meant improper or ridiculous
or wrong. But Strether, so far as that went, could satisfy her.
"Unmentionable? Oh no, we constantly talk of it; we are quite familiar
and brazen about it. Only, as a small, trivial, rather ridiculous
object of the commonest domestic use, it's just wanting in-what shall I
say? Well, dignity, or the least approach to distinction. Right here
therefore, with everything about us so grand--!" In short he shrank.

"It's a false note?"

"Sadly. It's vulgar."

"But surely not vulgarer than this." Then on his wondering as she
herself had done: "Than everything about us." She seemed a trifle
irritated. "What do you take this for?"

"Why for--comparatively--divine!"

"This dreadful London theatre? It's impossible, if you really want to
know."

"Oh then," laughed Strether, "I DON'T really want to know!"

It made between them a pause, which she, however, still fascinated by
the mystery of the production at Woollett, presently broke. "'Rather
ridiculous'? Clothes-pins? Saleratus? Shoe-polish?"

It brought him round. "No--you don't even 'burn.' I don't think, you
know, you'll guess it."

"How then can I judge how vulgar it is?"

"You'll judge when I do tell you"--and he persuaded her to patience.
But it may even now frankly be mentioned that he in the sequel never
WAS to tell her. He actually never did so, and it moreover oddly
occurred that by the law,