“Why to marry Chad. That may be, you know, what they want. And if Chad wants it too, and little Bilham wants it, and even _we_, at a pinch, could do with it—that is if she doesn’t prevent repatriation—why it may be plain sailing yet.” It was always the case for him in these counsels that each of his remarks, as it came, seemed to drop into a deeper well. He had at all events to wait a moment to hear the slight splash of this one. “I don’t see why if Mr. Newsome wants to marry the young lady he hasn’t already done it or hasn’t been prepared with some statement to you about it. And if he both wants to marry her and is on good terms with them why isn’t he ‘free’?” Strether, responsively, wondered indeed. “Perhaps the girl herself doesn’t like him.” “Then why does he speak of them to you as he does?” Strether’s mind echoed the question, but also again met it. “Perhaps it’s with the mother he’s on good terms.” “As against the daughter?” “Well, if she’s trying to persuade the daughter to consent to him, what could make him like the mother more? Only,” Strether threw out, “why shouldn’t the daughter consent to him?” “Oh,” said Miss Gostrey, “mayn’t it be that every one else isn’t quite so struck with him as you?” “Doesn’t regard him you mean as such an ‘eligible’ young man? _Is_ that what I’ve come to?” he audibly and rather gravely sought to know. “However,” he went on, “his marriage is what his mother most desires—that is if it will help. And oughtn’t _any_ marriage to help? They must want him”—he had already worked it out—“to be better off. Almost any girl he may marry will have a direct interest in his taking up his chances. It won’t suit _her_ at least that he shall miss them.” Miss Gostrey cast about. “No—you reason well! But of course on the other hand there’s always dear old Woollett itself.” “Oh yes,” he mused—“there’s always dear old Woollett itself.” She waited a moment. “The young lady mayn’t find herself able to swallow _that_ quantity. She may think it’s paying too much; she may weigh one thing against another.” Strether, ever restless in such debates, took a vague turn “It will all depend on who she is. That of course—the proved ability to deal with dear old Woollett, since I’m sure she does deal with it—is what makes so strongly for Mamie.” “Mamie?” He stopped short, at her tone, before her; then, though seeing that it represented not vagueness, but a momentary embarrassed fulness, let his exclamation come. “You surely haven’t forgotten about Mamie!” “No, I haven’t forgotten about Mamie,” she smiled. “There’s no doubt whatever that there’s ever so much to be said for her. Mamie’s _my_ girl!” she roundly declared. Strether resumed for a minute his walk. “She’s really perfectly lovely, you know. Far prettier than any girl I’ve seen over here yet.” “That’s precisely on what I perhaps most build.” And she mused a moment in her friend’s way. “I should positively like to take her in hand!”