e
refuge but in asking her what she had done with Waymarsh, though it
must be added that he felt himself a little on the way to a clue after
she had answered that this personage was, in the other room, engaged in
conversation with Madame de Vionnet. He stared a moment at the image
of such a conjunction; then, for Miss Barrace's benefit, he wondered.
"Is she too then under the charm--?"

"No, not a bit"--Miss Barrace was prompt. "She makes nothing of him.
She's bored. She won't help you with him."

"Oh," Strether laughed, "she can't do everything.

"Of course not--wonderful as she is. Besides, he makes nothing of HER.
She won't take him from me--though she wouldn't, no doubt, having other
affairs in hand, even if she could. I've never," said Miss Barrace,
"seen her fail with any one before. And to-night, when she's so
magnificent, it would seem to her strange--if she minded. So at any
rate I have him all. Je suis tranquille!"

Strether understood, so far as that went; but he was feeling for his
clue. "She strikes you to-night as particularly magnificent?"

"Surely. Almost as I've never seen her. Doesn't she you? Why it's FOR
you."

He persisted in his candour. "'For' me--?"

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Miss Barrace, who persisted in the opposite of that
quality.

"Well," he acutely admitted, "she IS different. She's gay."

"She's gay!" Miss Barrace laughed. "And she has beautiful
shoulders--though there's nothing different in that."

"No," said Strether, "one was sure of her shoulders. It isn't her
shoulders."

His companion, with renewed mirth and the finest sense, between the
puffs of her cigarette, of the drollery of things, appeared to find
their conversation highly delightful. "Yes, it isn't her shoulders ."

"What then is it?" Strether earnestly enquired.

"Why, it's SHE--simply. It's her mood. It's her charm."

"Of course it's her charm, but we're speaking of the difference."
"Well," Miss Barrace explained, "she's just brilliant, as we used to
say. That's all. She's various. She's fifty women."

"Ah but only one"--Strether kept it clear--"at a time."

"Perhaps. But in fifty times--!"

"Oh we shan't come to that," our friend declared; and the next moment
he had moved in another direction. "Will you answer me a plain
question? Will she ever divorce?"

Miss Barrace looked at him through all her tortoise-shell. "Why should
she?"

It wasn't what he had asked for, he signified;