Sarah hesitated, but she rose equal. “She’ll return your visit with me. She’s at present out with Mr. Pocock and my brother.” “I see—of course Mr. Newsome has everything to show them. He has told me so much about her. My great desire’s to give my daughter the opportunity of making her acquaintance. I’m always on the lookout for such chances for her. If I didn’t bring her to-day it was only to make sure first that you’d let me.” After which the charming woman risked a more intense appeal. “It wouldn’t suit _you_ also to mention some near time, so that we shall be sure not to lose you?” Strether on his side waited, for Sarah likewise had, after all, to perform; and it occupied him to have been thus reminded that she had stayed at home—and on her first morning of Paris—while Chad led the others forth. Oh she was up to her eyes; if she had stayed at home she had stayed by an understanding, arrived at the evening before, that Waymarsh would come and find her alone. This was beginning well—for a first day in Paris; and the thing might be amusing yet. But Madame de Vionnet’s earnestness was meanwhile beautiful. “You may think me indiscreet, but I’ve _such_ a desire my Jeanne shall know an American girl of the really delightful kind. You see I throw myself for it on your charity.” The manner of this speech gave Strether such a sense of depths below it and behind it as he hadn’t yet had—ministered in a way that almost frightened him to his dim divinations of reasons; but if Sarah still, in spite of it, faltered, this was why he had time for a sign of sympathy with her petitioner. “Let me say then, dear lady, to back your plea, that Miss Mamie is of the most delightful kind of all—is charming among the charming.” Even Waymarsh, though with more to produce on the subject, could get into motion in time. “Yes, Countess, the American girl’s a thing that your country must at least allow ours the privilege to say we _can_ show you. But her full beauty is only for those who know how to make use of her.” “Ah then,” smiled Madame de Vionnet, “that’s exactly what I want to do. I’m sure she has much to teach us.” It was wonderful, but what was scarce less so was that Strether found himself, by the quick effect of it, moved another way. “Oh that may be! But don’t speak of your own exquisite daughter, you know, as if she weren’t pure perfection. _I_ at least won’t take that from you. Mademoiselle de Vionnet,” he explained, in considerable form, to Mrs. Pocock, “_is_ pure perfection. Mademoiselle de Vionnet _is_ exquisite.” It had been perhaps a little portentous, but “Ah?” Sarah simply glittered. Waymarsh himself, for that matter, apparently recognised, in respect to the facts, the need of a larger justice, and he had with it an inclination to Sarah. “Miss Jane’s strikingly handsome—in the regular French style.”