youth going now to trust her with the affair--so
that it would be after all with one of his "lady-friends" that his
mother's missionary should be condemned to deal? It was quite as if
for an instant the two men looked at each other on this question. But
there was no mistaking at last Chad's pride in the display of such a
connexion. This was what had made him so carry himself while, three
minutes before, he was bringing it into view; what had caused his
friend, first catching sight of him, to be so struck with his air. It
was, in a word, just when he thus finally felt Chad putting things
straight off on him that he envied him, as he had mentioned to little
Bilham, most. The whole exhibition however was but a matter of three
or four minutes, and the author of it had soon explained that, as
Madame de Vionnet was immediately going "on," this could be for Jeanne
but a snatch. They would all meet again soon, and Strether was
meanwhile to stay and amuse himself--"I'll pick you up again in plenty
of time." He took the girl off as he had brought her, and Strether,
with the faint sweet foreignness of her "Au revoir, monsieur!" in his
ears as a note almost unprecedented, watched them recede side by side
and felt how, once more, her companion's relation to her got an accent
from it. They disappeared among the others and apparently into the
house; whereupon our friend turned round to give out to little Bilham
the conviction of which he was full. But there was no little Bilham
any more; little Bilham had within the few moments, for reasons of his
own, proceeded further: a circumstance by which, in its order,
Strether was also sensibly affected.

III

Chad was not in fact on this occasion to keep his promise of coming
back; but Miss Gostrey had soon presented herself with an explanation
of his failure. There had been reasons at the last for his going off
with ces dames; and he had asked her with much instance to come out and
take charge of their friend. She did so, Strether felt as she took her
place beside him, in a manner that left nothing to desire. He had
dropped back on his bench, alone again for a time, and the more
conscious for little Bilham's defection of his unexpressed thought; in
respect to which however this next converser was a still more capacious
vessel. "It's the child!" he had exclaimed to her almost as soon as
she appeared; and though her direct response was for some time delayed
he could feel i