, a subject of discussion. He had been, on some ground
that concerned her, answered for; which gave her an advantage he should
never be able to match.

"Hasn't Miss Gostrey," she asked, "said a good word for me?"

What had struck him first was the way he was bracketed with that lady;
and he wondered what account Chad would have given of their
acquaintance. Something not as yet traceable, at all events, had
obviously happened. "I didn't even know of her knowing you."

"Well, now she'll tell you all. I'm so glad you're in relation with
her."

This was one of the things--the "all" Miss Gostrey would now tell
him--that, with every deference to present preoccupation, was uppermost
for Strether after they had taken their seat. One of the others was,
at the end of five minutes, that she--oh incontestably, yes--DIFFERED
less; differed, that is, scarcely at all--well, superficially speaking,
from Mrs. Newsome or even from Mrs. Pocock. She was ever so much
younger than the one and not so young as the other; but what WAS there
in her, if anything, that would have made it impossible he should meet
her at Woollett? And wherein was her talk during their moments on the
bench together not the same as would have been found adequate for a
Woollett garden-party?--unless perhaps truly in not being quite so
bright. She observed to him that Mr. Newsome had, to her knowledge,
taken extraordinary pleasure in his visit; but there was no good lady
at Woollett who wouldn't have been at least up to that. Was there in
Chad, by chance, after all, deep down, a principle of aboriginal
loyalty that had made him, for sentimental ends, attach himself to
elements, happily encountered, that would remind him most of the old
air and the old soil? Why accordingly be in a flutter--Strether could
even put it that way--about this unfamiliar phenomenon of the femme du
monde? On these terms Mrs. Newsome herself was as much of one. Little
Bilham verily had testified that they came out, the ladies of the type,
in close quarters; but it was just in these quarters--now comparatively
close--that he felt Madame de Vionnet's common humanity. She did come
out, and certainly to his relief, but she came out as the usual thing.
There might be motives behind, but so could there often be even at
Woollett. The only thing was that if she showed him she wished to like
him--as the motives behind might conceivably prompt--it would possibly
have been more thrilling for