olutely took up nothing his interlocutress had now
let drop. Yet, though he had kept away from her for days, had laid
wholly on herself the burden of their meeting again, she hadn't a gleam
of irritation to show him. "Well, about Jeanne now?" she smiled--it
had the gaiety with which she had originally come in. He felt it on the
instant to represent her motive and real errand. But he had been
schooling her of a truth to say much in proportion to his little. "Do
you make out that she has a sentiment? I mean for Mr. Newsome."

Almost resentful, Strether could at last be prompt. "How can I make
out such things?"

She remained perfectly good-natured. "Ah but they're beautiful little
things, and you make out--don't pretend--everything in the world.
Haven't you," she asked, "been talking with her?"

"Yes, but not about Chad. At least not much."

"Oh you don't require 'much'!" she reassuringly declared. But she
immediately changed her ground. "I hope you remember your promise of
the other day."

"To 'save' you, as you called it?"

"I call it so still. You WILL?" she insisted. "You haven't repented?"

He wondered. "No--but I've been thinking what I meant."

She kept it up. "And not, a little, what I did?"

"No--that's not necessary. It will be enough if I know what I meant
myself."

"And don't you know," she asked, "by this time?"

Again he had a pause. "I think you ought to leave it to me. But how
long," he added, "do you give me?"

"It seems to me much more a question of how long you give ME. Doesn't
our friend here himself, at any rate," she went on, "perpetually make
me present to you?"

"Not," Strether replied, "by ever speaking of you to me."

"He never does that?"

"Never."

She considered, and, if the fact was disconcerting to her, effectually
concealed it. The next minute indeed she had recovered. "No, he
wouldn't. But do you NEED that?"

Her emphasis was wonderful, and though his eyes had been wandering he
looked at her longer now. "I see what you mean."

"Of course you see what I mean."

Her triumph was gentle, and she really had tones to make justice weep.
"I've before me what he owes you."

"Admit then that that's something," she said, yet still with the same
discretion in her pride.

He took in this note but went straight on. "You've made of him what I
see, but what I don't see is how in the world you've done it."

"Ah that's another question!" she smiled. "The point