at all events Mamie."

"And who then?"

"Ah," Strether returned, "that I'm not obliged to say. But Madame de
Vionnet--I suggest--when he can.'

"Oh!" said little Bilham with some sharpness.

"Oh precisely! But he needn't marry at all--I'm at any rate not
obliged to provide for it. Whereas in your case I rather feel that I
AM."

Little Bilham was amused. "Obliged to provide for my marrying?"

"Yes--after all I've done to you!"

The young man weighed it. "Have you done as much as that?"

"Well," said Strether, thus challenged, "of course I must remember what
you've also done to ME. We may perhaps call it square. But all the
same," he went on, "I wish awfully you'd marry Mamie Pocock yourself."

Little Bilham laughed out. "Why it was only the other night, in this
very place, that you were proposing to me a different union altogether."

"Mademoiselle de Vionnet?" Well, Strether easily confessed it. "That,
I admit, was a vain image. THIS is practical politics. I want to do
something good for both of you--I wish you each so well; and you can
see in a moment the trouble it will save me to polish you off by the
same stroke. She likes you, you know. You console her. And she's
splendid."

Little Bilham stared as a delicate appetite stares at an overheaped
plate. "What do I console her for?"

It just made his friend impatient. "Oh come, you knows"

"And what proves for you that she likes me?"

"Why the fact that I found her three days ago stopping at home alone
all the golden afternoon on the mere chance that you'd come to her, and
hanging over her balcony on that of seeing your cab drive up. I don't
know what you want more."

Little Bilham after a moment found it. "Only just to know what proves
to you that I like HER."

"Oh if what I've just mentioned isn't enough to make you do it, you're
a stony-hearted little fiend. Besides"--Strether encouraged his
fancy's flight--"you showed your inclination in the way you kept her
waiting, kept her on purpose to see if she cared enough for you."

His companion paid his ingenuity the deference of a pause. "I didn't
keep her waiting. I came at the hour. I wouldn't have kept her
waiting for the world," the young man honourably declared.

"Better still--then there you are!" And Strether, charmed, held him
the faster. "Even if you didn't do her justice, moreover," he
continued, "I should insist on your immediately coming round to it. I
want awfully