t that might turn up. He had often enough
wondered to what degree his interference might pass for interested; so
that there was no want of luxury in letting it be seen whenever he
could that he didn't interfere. That had of course at the same time
not deprived him of the further luxury of much private astonishment;
which however he had reduced to some order before communicating his
knowledge. When he had done this at last it was with the remark that,
surprised as Miss Gostrey might, like himself, at first be, she would
probably agree with him on reflexion that such an account of the matter
did after all fit the confirmed appearances. Nothing certainly, on all
the indications, could have been a greater change for him than a
virtuous attachment, and since they had been in search of the "word" as
the French called it, of that change, little Bilham's
announcement--though so long and so oddly delayed--would serve as well
as another. She had assured Strether in fact after a pause that the
more she thought of it the more it did serve; and yet her assurance
hadn't so weighed with him as that before they parted he hadn't
ventured to challenge her sincerity. Didn't she believe the attachment
was virtuous?--he had made sure of her again with the aid of that
question. The tidings he brought her on this second occasion were
moreover such as would help him to make surer still.

She showed at first none the less as only amused. "You say there are
two? An attachment to them both then would, I suppose, almost
necessarily be innocent."

Our friend took the point, but he had his clue. "Mayn't he be still in
the stage of not quite knowing which of them, mother or daughter, he
likes best?"

She gave it more thought. "Oh it must be the daughter--at his age."

"Possibly. Yet what do we know," Strether asked, "about hers? She may
be old enough."

"Old enough for what?"

"Why to marry Chad. That may be, you know, what they want. And if
Chad wants it too, and little Bilham wants it, and even we, at a pinch,
could do with it--that is if she doesn't prevent repatriation--why it
may be plain sailing yet."

It was always the case for him in these counsels that each of his
remarks, as it came, seemed to drop into a deeper well. He had at all
events to wait a moment to hear the slight splash of this one. "I don't
see why if Mr. Newsome wants to marry the young lady he hasn't already
done it or hasn't been prepared with some stat