It seemed to have on Miss Gostrey a certain hardening effect. “And who in the world’s Mrs. Jim?” “Chad’s sister—who was Sarah Newsome. She’s married—didn’t I mention it?—to Jim Pocock.” “Ah yes,” she tacitly replied; but he had mentioned things—! Then, however, with all the sound it could have, “Who in the world’s Jim Pocock?” she asked. “Why Sally’s husband. That’s the only way we distinguish people at Woollett,” he good-humoredly explained. “And is it a great distinction—being Sally’s husband?” He considered. “I think there can be scarcely a greater—unless it may become one, in the future, to be Chad’s wife.” “Then how do they distinguish _you?_” “They _don’t_—except, as I’ve told you, by the green cover.” Once more their eyes met on it, and she held him an instant. “The green cover won’t—nor will _any_ cover—avail you with _me_. You’re of a depth of duplicity!” Still, she could in her own large grasp of the real condone it. “Is Mamie a great _parti?_” “Oh the greatest we have—our prettiest brightest girl.” Miss Gostrey seemed to fix the poor child. “I know what they _can_ be. And with money?” “Not perhaps with a great deal of that—but with so much of everything else that we don’t miss it. We _don’t_ miss money much, you know,” Strether added, “in general, in America, in pretty girls.” “No,” she conceded; “but I know also what you do sometimes miss. And do you,” she asked, “yourself admire her?” It was a question, he indicated, that there might be several ways of taking; but he decided after an instant for the humorous. “Haven’t I sufficiently showed you how I admire _any_ pretty girl?” Her interest in his problem was by this time such that it scarce left her freedom, and she kept close to the facts. “I supposed that at Woollett you wanted them—what shall I call it?—blameless. I mean your young men for your pretty girls.” “So did I!” Strether confessed. “But you strike there a curious fact—the fact that Woollett too accommodates itself to the spirit of the age and the increasing mildness of manners. Everything changes, and I hold that our situation precisely marks a date. We _should_ prefer them blameless, but we have to make the best of them as we find them. Since the spirit of the age and the increasing mildness send them so much more to Paris—” “You’ve to take them back as they come. When they _do_ come. _Bon!_” Once more she embraced it all, but she had a moment of thought. “Poor Chad!” “Ah,” said Strether cheerfully “Mamie will save him!” She was looking away, still in her vision, and she spoke with impatience and almost as if he hadn’t understood her. “_You’ll_ save him. That’s who’ll save him.” “Oh but with Mamie’s aid. Unless indeed you mean,” he added, “that I shall effect so much more with yours!” It made her at last again look at him. “You’ll do more—as you’re so much better—than all of us put together.” “I think I’m only better since I’ve known _you!_” Strether bravely returned.