as to come. Is Madame de
Vionnet a collector?" Strether went on.

"Rather, I believe; almost celebrated." The young man met, on it, a
little, his friend's eyes. "I happen to know--from Chad, whom I saw
last night--that they've come back; but only yesterday. He wasn't
sure--up to the last. This, accordingly," little Bilham went on, "will
be--if they ARE here--their first appearance after their return."

Strether, very quickly, turned these things over. "Chad told you last
night? To me, on our way here, he said nothing about it."

"But did you ask him?"

Strether did him the justice. "I dare say not."

"Well," said little Bilham, "you're not a person to whom it's easy to
tell things you don't want to know. Though it is easy, I admit--it's
quite beautiful," he benevolently added, "when you do want to."

Strether looked at him with an indulgence that matched his
intelligence. "Is that the deep reasoning on which--about these
ladies--you've been yourself so silent?"

Little Bilham considered the depth of his reasoning. "I haven't been
silent. I spoke of them to you the other day, the day we sat together
after Chad's tea-party."

Strether came round to it. "They then are the virtuous attachment?"

"I can only tell you that it's what they pass for. But isn't that
enough? What more than a vain appearance does the wisest of us know? I
commend you," the young man declared with a pleasant emphasis, "the
vain appearance."

Strether looked more widely round, and what he saw, from face to face,
deepened the effect of his young friend's words. "Is it so good?"

"Magnificent."

Strether had a pause. "The husband's dead?"

"Dear no. Alive."

"Oh!" said Strether. After which, as his companion laughed: "How then
can it be so good?"

"You'll see for yourself. One does see."

"Chad's in love with the daughter?"

"That's what I mean."

Strether wondered. "Then where's the difficulty?"

"Why, aren't you and I--with our grander bolder ideas?"

"Oh mine--!" Strether said rather strangely. But then as if to
attenuate: "You mean they won't hear of Woollett?"

Little Bilham smiled. "Isn't that just what you must see about?"

It had brought them, as she caught the last words, into relation with
Miss Barrace, whom Strether had already observed--as he had never
before seen a lady at a party--moving about alone. Coming within sound
of them she had already spoken, and she took again, through her
long-h