her to-day it was only to make
sure first that you'd let me." After which the charming woman risked a
more intense appeal. "It wouldn't suit you also to mention some near
time, so that we shall be sure not to lose you?" Strether on his side
waited, for Sarah likewise had, after all, to perform; and it occupied
him to have been thus reminded that she had stayed at home--and on her
first morning of Paris--while Chad led the others forth. Oh she was up
to her eyes; if she had stayed at home she had stayed by an
understanding, arrived at the evening before, that Waymarsh would come
and find her alone. This was beginning well--for a first day in Paris;
and the thing might be amusing yet. But Madame de Vionnet's
earnestness was meanwhile beautiful. "You may think me indiscreet, but
I've SUCH a desire my Jeanne shall know an American girl of the really
delightful kind. You see I throw myself for it on your charity."

The manner of this speech gave Strether such a sense of depths below it
and behind it as he hadn't yet had--ministered in a way that almost
frightened him to his dim divinations of reasons; but if Sarah still,
in spite of it, faltered, this was why he had time for a sign of
sympathy with her petitioner. "Let me say then, dear lady, to back
your plea, that Miss Mamie is of the most delightful kind of all--is
charming among the charming."

Even Waymarsh, though with more to produce on the subject, could get
into motion in time. "Yes, Countess, the American girl's a thing that
your country must at least allow ours the privilege to say we CAN show
you. But her full beauty is only for those who know how to make use of
her."

"Ah then," smiled Madame de Vionnet, "that's exactly what I want to do.
I'm sure she has much to teach us."

It was wonderful, but what was scarce less so was that Strether found
himself, by the quick effect of it, moved another way. "Oh that may
be! But don't speak of your own exquisite daughter, you know, as if
she weren't pure perfection. I at least won't take that from you.
Mademoiselle de Vionnet," he explained, in considerable form, to Mrs.
Pocock, "IS pure perfection. Mademoiselle de Vionnet IS exquisite."

It had been perhaps a little portentous, but "Ah?" Sarah simply
glittered.

Waymarsh himself, for that matter, apparently recognised, in respect to
the facts, the need of a larger justice, and he had with it an
inclination to Sarah. "Miss Jane's strikingly handsome--