o go straight on. "You say that if he does
break he'll come in for things at home?"

"Quite positively. He'll come in for a particular chance--a chance
that any properly constituted young man would jump at. The business
has so developed that an opening scarcely apparent three years ago, but
which his father's will took account of as in certain conditions
possible and which, under that will, attaches to Chad's availing
himself of it a large contingent advantage--this opening, the
conditions having come about, now simply awaits him. His mother has
kept it for him, holding out against strong pressure, till the last
possible moment. It requires, naturally, as it carries with it a
handsome 'part,' a large share in profits, his being on the spot and
making a big effort for a big result. That's what I mean by his chance.
If he misses it he comes in, as you say, for nothing. And to see that
he doesn't miss it is, in a word, what I've come out for."

She let it all sink in. "What you've come out for then is simply to
render him an immense service."

Well, poor Strether was willing to take it so. "Ah if you like."

"He stands, as they say, if you succeed with him, to gain--"

"Oh a lot of advantages." Strether had them clearly at his fingers'
ends.

"By which you mean of course a lot of money."

"Well, not only. I'm acting with a sense for him of other things too.
Consideration and comfort and security--the general safety of being
anchored by a strong chain. He wants, as I see him, to be protected.
Protected I mean from life."

"Ah voila!"--her thought fitted with a click. "From life. What you
REALLY want to get him home for is to marry him."

"Well, that's about the size of it."

"Of course," she said, "it's rudimentary. But to any one in
particular?"

He smiled at this, looking a little more conscious. "You get
everything out."

For a moment again their eyes met. "You put everything in!"

He acknowledged the tribute by telling her. "To Mamie Pocock."

She wondered; then gravely, even exquisitely, as if to make the oddity
also fit: "His own niece?"

"Oh you must yourself find a name for the relation. His
brother-in-law's sister. Mrs. Jim's sister-in-law."

It seemed to have on Miss Gostrey a certain hardening effect. "And who
in the world's Mrs. Jim?"

"Chad's sister--who was Sarah Newsome. She's married--didn't I mention
it?--to Jim Pocock."

"Ah yes," she tacitly replied; but he ha