ds at Woollett--Chad's and mine--were at
the earliest moment definitely notified. If any are producible Mrs.
Pocock will produce them; she'll bring over the whole collection.
They'll be," he added with a pensive smile "a part of the 'fun' you
speak of."

She was quite in the current now and floating by his side. "It's
Mamie--so far as I've had it from you--who'll be their great card." And
then as his contemplative silence wasn't a denial she significantly
added: "I think I'm sorry for her."

"I think I am!"--and Strether sprang up, moving about a little as her
eyes followed him. "But it can't be helped."

"You mean her coming out can't be?"

He explained after another turn what he meant. "The only way for her
not to come is for me to go home--as I believe that on the spot I could
prevent it. But the difficulty as to that is that if I do go home--"

"I see, I see"--she had easily understood. "Mr. Newsome will do the
same, and that's not"--she laughed out now--"to be thought of."

Strether had no laugh; he had only a quiet comparatively placid look
that might have shown him as proof against ridicule. "Strange, isn't
it?"

They had, in the matter that so much interested them, come so far as
this without sounding another name--to which however their present
momentary silence was full of a conscious reference. Strether's
question was a sufficient implication of the weight it had gained with
him during the absence of his hostess; and just for that reason a
single gesture from her could pass for him as a vivid answer. Yet he
was answered still better when she said in a moment: "Will Mr. Newsome
introduce his sister--?"

"To Madame de Vionnet?" Strether spoke the name at last. "I shall be
greatly surprised if he doesn't."

She seemed to gaze at the possibility. "You mean you've thought of it
and you're prepared."

"I've thought of it and I'm prepared."

It was to her visitor now that she applied her consideration. "Bon!
You ARE magnificent!"

"Well," he answered after a pause and a little wearily, but still
standing there before her--"well, that's what, just once in all my dull
days, I think I shall like to have been!"

Two days later he had news from Chad of a communication from Woollett
in response to their determinant telegram, this missive being addressed
to Chad himself and announcing the immediate departure for France of
Sarah and Jim and Mamie. Strether had meanwhile on his own side
cabled;