“Well,” said Strether, “say then for _me_. He’ll do anything for me; just as I will, for that matter—anything I can—for him. Or for Mamie either. _She’ll_ do anything for me.” Miss Gostrey gave a comprehensive sigh. “The way you reduce people to subjection!” “It’s certainly, on one side, wonderful. But it’s quite equalled, on another, by the way I don’t. I haven’t reduced Sarah, since yesterday; though I’ve succeeded in seeing her again, as I’ll presently tell you. The others however are really all right. Mamie, by that blessed law of ours, absolutely must have a young man.” “But what must poor Mr. Bilham have? Do you mean they’ll _marry_ for you?” “I mean that, by the same blessed law, it won’t matter a grain if they don’t—I shan’t have in the least to worry.” She saw as usual what he meant. “And Mr. Jim?—who goes for him?” “Oh,” Strether had to admit, “I couldn’t manage _that_. He’s thrown, as usual, on the world; the world which, after all, by his account—for he has prodigious adventures—seems very good to him. He fortunately—‘over here,’ as he says—finds the world everywhere; and his most prodigious adventure of all,” he went on, “has been of course of the last few days.” Miss Gostrey, already knowing, instantly made the connexion. “He has seen Marie de Vionnet again?” “He went, all by himself, the day after Chad’s party—didn’t I tell you?—to tea with her. By her invitation—all alone.” “Quite like yourself!” Maria smiled. “Oh but he’s more wonderful about her than I am!” And then as his friend showed how she could believe it, filling it out, fitting it on to old memories of the wonderful woman: “What I should have liked to manage would have been _her_ going.” “To Switzerland with the party?” “For Jim—and for symmetry. If it had been workable moreover for a fortnight she’d have gone. She’s ready”—he followed up his renewed vision of her—“for anything.” Miss Gostrey went with him a minute. “She’s too perfect!” “She _will_, I think,” he pursued, “go to-night to the station.” “To see him off?” “With Chad—marvellously—as part of their general attention. And she does it”—it kept before him—“with a light, light grace, a free, free gaiety, that may well softly bewilder Mr. Pocock.” It kept her so before him that his companion had after an instant a friendly comment. “As in short it has softly bewildered a saner man. Are you really in love with her?” Maria threw off. “It’s of no importance I should know,” he replied. “It matters so little—has nothing to do, practically, with either of us.” “All the same”—Maria continued to smile—“they go, the five, as I understand you, and you and Madame de Vionnet stay.” “Oh and Chad.” To which Strether added: “And you.” “Ah ‘me’!”—she gave a small impatient wail again, in which something of the unreconciled seemed suddenly to break out. “_I_ don’t stay, it somehow seems to me, much to my advantage. In the presence of all you cause to pass before me I’ve a tremendous sense of privation.”