Y to see, for it must have been
that only you meant. Well, you did me no end of good, and I'm doing my
best. I DO make it out a situation."

"So do I!" Strether went on after a moment. But he had the next minute
an inconsequent question. "How comes Chad so mixed up, anyway?"

"Ah, ah, ah!"--and little Bilham fell back on his cushions.

It reminded our friend of Miss Barrace, and he felt again the brush of
his sense of moving in a maze of mystic closed allusions. Yet he kept
hold of his thread. "Of course I understand really; only the general
transformation makes me occasionally gasp. Chad with such a voice in
the settlement of the future of a little countess--no," he declared,
"it takes more time! You say moreover," he resumed, "that we're
inevitably, people like you and me, out of the running. The curious
fact remains that Chad himself isn't. The situation doesn't make for
it, but in a different one he could have her if he would."

"Yes, but that's only because he's rich and because there's a
possibility of his being richer. They won't think of anything but a
great name or a great fortune."

"Well," said Strether, "he'll have no great fortune on THESE lines. He
must stir his stumps."

"Is that," little Bilham enquired, "what you were saying to Madame de
Vionnet?"

"No--I don't say much to her. Of course, however," Strether continued,
"he can make sacrifices if he likes."

Little Bilham had a pause. "Oh he's not keen for sacrifices; or
thinks, that is, possibly, that he has made enough."

"Well, it IS virtuous," his companion observed with some decision.

"That's exactly," the young man dropped after a moment, "what I mean."

It kept Strether himself silent a little. "I've made it out for
myself," he then went on; "I've really, within the last half-hour, got
hold of it. I understand it in short at last; which at first--when you
originally spoke to me--I didn't. Nor when Chad originally spoke to me
either."

"Oh," said little Bilham, "I don't think that at that time you believed
me."

"Yes--I did; and I believed Chad too. It would have been odious and
unmannerly--as well as quite perverse--if I hadn't. What interest have
you in deceiving me?"

The young man cast about. "What interest have I?"

"Yes. Chad MIGHT have. But you?"

"Ah, ah, ah!" little Bilham exclaimed.

It might, on repetition, as a mystification, have irritated our friend
a little, but he knew, once more, as we have