t see for my life," Strether had
then observed, "how a young fellow of any spirit--such a one as you for
instance--can be admitted to the sight of that young lady without being
hard hit. Why don't you go in, little Bilham?" He remembered the tone
into which he had been betrayed on the garden-bench at the sculptor's
reception, and this might make up for that by being much more the right
sort of thing to say to a young man worthy of any advice at all. "There
WOULD be some reason."

"Some reason for what?"

"Why for hanging on here."

"To offer my hand and fortune to Mademoiselle de Vionnet?"

"Well," Strether asked, "to what lovelier apparition COULD you offer
them? She's the sweetest little thing I've ever seen."

"She's certainly immense. I mean she's the real thing. I believe the
pale pink petals are folded up there for some wondrous efflorescence in
time; to open, that is, to some great golden sun. I'M unfortunately but
a small farthing candle. What chance in such a field for a poor little
painter-man?"

"Oh you're good enough," Strether threw out.

"Certainly I'm good enough. We're good enough, I consider, nous
autres, for anything. But she's TOO good. There's the difference.
They wouldn't look at me."

Strether, lounging on his divan and still charmed by the young girl,
whose eyes had consciously strayed to him, he fancied, with a vague
smile--Strether, enjoying the whole occasion as with dormant pulses at
last awake and in spite of new material thrust upon him, thought over
his companion's words. "Whom do you mean by 'they'? She and her
mother?"

"She and her mother. And she has a father too, who, whatever else he
may be, certainly can't be indifferent to the possibilities she
represents. Besides, there's Chad."

Strether was silent a little. "Ah but he doesn't care for her--not, I
mean, it appears, after all, in the sense I'm speaking of. He's NOT in
love with her."

"No--but he's her best friend; after her mother. He's very fond of
her. He has his ideas about what can be done for her."

"Well, it's very strange!" Strether presently remarked with a sighing
sense of fulness.

"Very strange indeed. That's just the beauty of it. Isn't it very
much the kind of beauty you had in mind," little Bilham went on, "when
you were so wonderful and so inspiring to me the other day? Didn't you
adjure me, in accents I shall never forget, to see, while I've a
chance, everything I can?--and REALL