He looked at her in all kindness. “Yes—if it weren’t for that!” “And you help me to wait,” she said. “However,” she went on, “I’ve really something for you that will help you to wait and which you shall have in a minute. Only there’s something more I want from you first. I revel in Sarah.” “So do I. If it weren’t,” he again amusedly sighed, “for _that_—!” “Well, you owe more to women than any man I ever saw. We do seem to keep you going. Yet Sarah, as I see her, must be great.” “She _is_” Strether fully assented: “great! Whatever happens, she won’t, with these unforgettable days, have lived in vain.” Miss Gostrey had a pause. “You mean she has fallen in love?” “I mean she wonders if she hasn’t—and it serves all her purpose.” “It has indeed,” Maria laughed, “served women’s purposes before!” “Yes—for giving in. But I doubt if the idea—as an idea—has ever up to now answered so well for holding out. That’s _her_ tribute to the ideal—we each have our own. It’s her romance—and it seems to me better on the whole than mine. To have it in Paris too,” he explained—“on this classic ground, in this charged infectious air, with so sudden an intensity: well, it’s more than she expected. She has had in short to recognise the breaking out for her of a real affinity—and with everything to enhance the drama.” Miss Gostrey followed. “Jim for instance?” “Jim. Jim hugely enhances. Jim was made to enhance. And then Mr. Waymarsh. It’s the crowning touch—it supplies the colour. He’s positively separated.” “And she herself unfortunately isn’t—that supplies the colour too.” Miss Gostrey was all there. But somehow—! “Is _he_ in love?” Strether looked at her a long time; then looked all about the room; then came a little nearer. “Will you never tell any one in the world as long as ever you live?” “Never.” It was charming. “He thinks Sarah really is. But he has no fear,” Strether hastened to add. “Of her being affected by it?” “Of _his_ being. He likes it, but he knows she can hold out. He’s helping her, he’s floating her over, by kindness.” Maria rather funnily considered it. “Floating her over in champagne? The kindness of dining her, nose to nose, at the hour when all Paris is crowding to profane delights, and in the—well, in the great temple, as one hears of it, of pleasure?” “That’s just _it_, for both of them,” Strether insisted—“and all of a supreme innocence. The Parisian place, the feverish hour, the putting before her of a hundred francs’ worth of food and drink, which they’ll scarcely touch—all that’s the dear man’s own romance; the expensive kind, expensive in francs and centimes, in which he abounds. And the circus afterwards—which is cheaper, but which he’ll find some means of making as dear as possible—that’s also _his_ tribute to the ideal. It does for him. He’ll see her through. They won’t talk of anything worse than you and me.”