eling for; a light, romantic and
mysterious, on the feminine element, in which he enjoyed for a little
watching it. "Are there any Poles?"

His companion considered. "I think I make out a 'Portuguee.' But I've
seen Turks."

Strether wondered, desiring justice. "They seem--all the women--very
harmonious."

"Oh in closer quarters they come out!" And then, while Strether was
aware of fearing closer quarters, though giving himself again to the
harmonies, "Well," little Bilham went on, "it IS at the worst rather
good, you know. If you like it, you feel it, this way, that shows
you're not in the least out But you always know things," he handsomely
added, "immediately."

Strether liked it and felt it only too much; so "I say, don't lay traps
for me!" he rather helplessly murmured.

"Well," his companion returned, "he's wonderfully kind to us."

"To us Americans you mean?"

"Oh no--he doesn't know anything about THAT. That's half the battle
here--that you can never hear politics. We don't talk them. I mean to
poor young wretches of all sorts. And yet it's always as charming as
this; it's as if, by something in the air, our squalor didn't show. It
puts us all back--into the last century."

"I'm afraid," Strether said, amused, "that it puts me rather forward:
oh ever so far!"

"Into the next? But isn't that only," little Bilham asked, "because
you're really of the century before?"

"The century before the last? Thank you!" Strether laughed. "If I ask
you about some of the ladies it can't be then that I may hope, as such
a specimen of the rococo, to please them."

"On the contrary they adore--we all adore here--the rococo, and where
is there a better setting for it than the whole thing, the pavilion and
the garden, together? There are lots of people with collections,"
little Bilham smiled as he glanced round. "You'll be secured!"

It made Strether for a moment give himself again to contemplation.
There were faces he scarce knew what to make of. Were they charming or
were they only strange? He mightn't talk politics, yet he suspected a
Pole or two. The upshot was the question at the back of his head from
the moment his friend had joined him. "Have Madame de Vionnet and her
daughter arrived?"

"I haven't seen them yet, but Miss Gostrey has come. She's in the
pavilion looking at objects. One can see SHE'S a collector," little
Bilham added without offence.

"Oh yes, she's a collector, and I knew she w