andled glass, all her amused and amusing possession. "How much,
poor Mr. Strether, you seem to have to see about! But you can't say,"
she gaily declared, "that I don't do what I can to help you. Mr.
Waymarsh is placed. I've left him in the house with Miss Gostrey."

"The way," little Bilham exclaimed, "Mr. Strether gets the ladies to
work for him! He's just preparing to draw in another; to pounce--don't
you see him?--on Madame de Vionnet."

"Madame de Vionnet? Oh, oh, oh!" Miss Barrace cried in a wonderful
crescendo. There was more in it, our friend made out, than met the
ear. Was it after all a joke that he should be serious about anything?
He envied Miss Barrace at any rate her power of not being. She seemed,
with little cries and protests and quick recognitions, movements like
the darts of some fine high-feathered free-pecking bird, to stand
before life as before some full shop-window. You could fairly hear, as
she selected and pointed, the tap of her tortoise-shell against the
glass. "It's certain that we do need seeing about; only I'm glad it's
not I who have to do it. One does, no doubt, begin that way; then
suddenly one finds that one has given it up. It's too much, it's too
difficult. You're wonderful, you people," she continued to Strether,
"for not feeling those things--by which I mean impossibilities. You
never feel them. You face them with a fortitude that makes it a lesson
to watch you."

"Ah but"--little Bilham put it with discouragement--"what do we achieve
after all? We see about you and report--when we even go so far as
reporting. But nothing's done."

"Oh you, Mr. Bilham," she replied as with an impatient rap on the
glass, "you're not worth sixpence! You come over to convert the
savages--for I know you verily did, I remember you--and the savages
simply convert YOU."

"Not even!" the young man woefully confessed: "they haven't gone
through that form. They've simply--the cannibals!--eaten me; converted
me if you like, but converted me into food. I'm but the bleached bones
of a Christian."

"Well then there we are! Only"--and Miss Barrace appealed again to
Strether--"don't let it discourage you. You'll break down soon enough,
but you'll meanwhile have had your moments. Il faut en avoir. I
always like to see you while you last. And I'll tell you who WILL
last."

"Waymarsh?"--he had already taken her up.

She laughed out as at the alarm of it. "He'll resist even Miss
Gostrey