y still: "He's capable of anything."

Strether more than reaffirmed--"Oh he's excellent. I more and more
like," he insisted, "to see him with them;" though the oddity of this
tone between them grew sharper for him even while they spoke. It placed
the young man so before them as the result of her interest and the
product of her genius, acknowledged so her part in the phenomenon and
made the phenomenon so rare, that more than ever yet he might have been
on the very point of asking her for some more detailed account of the
whole business than he had yet received from her. The occasion almost
forced upon him some question as to how she had managed and as to the
appearance such miracles presented from her own singularly close place
of survey. The moment in fact however passed, giving way to more
present history, and he continued simply to mark his appreciation of
the happy truth. "It's a tremendous comfort to feel how one can trust
him." And then again while for a little she said nothing--as if after
all to HER trust there might be a special limit: "I mean for making a
good show to them."

"Yes," she thoughtfully returned--"but if they shut their eyes to it!"

Strether for an instant had his own thought. "Well perhaps that won't
matter!"

"You mean because he probably--do what they will--won't like them?"

"Oh 'do what they will'--! They won't do much; especially if Sarah
hasn't more--well, more than one has yet made out--to give."

Madame de Vionnet weighed it. "Ah she has all her grace!" It was a
statement over which, for a little, they could look at each other
sufficiently straight, and though it produced no protest from Strether
the effect was somehow as if he had treated it as a joke. "She may be
persuasive and caressing with him; she may be eloquent beyond words.
She may get hold of him," she wound up--"well, as neither you nor I
have."

"Yes, she MAY"--and now Strether smiled. "But he has spent all his
time each day with Jim. He's still showing Jim round."

She visibly wondered. "Then how about Jim?"

Strether took a turn before he answered. "Hasn't he given you Jim?
Hasn't he before this 'done' him for you?" He was a little at a loss.
"Doesn't he tell you things?"

She hesitated. "No"--and their eyes once more gave and took. "Not as
you do. You somehow make me see them--or at least feel them. And I
haven't asked too much," she added; "I've of late wanted so not to
worry him."

"Ah for th