the event, at anything in the nature of a
"scene." To this Chad replied that they had on the contrary kept
tremendously polite; adding moreover that Sally was after all not the
woman to have made the mistake of not being. "Her hands are a good
deal tied, you see. I got so, from the first," he sagaciously
observed, "the start of her."

"You mean she has taken so much from you?"

"Well, I couldn't of course in common decency give less: only she
hadn't expected, I think, that I'd give her nearly so much. And she
began to take it before she knew it."

"And she began to like it," said Strether, "as soon as she began to
take it!"

"Yes, she has liked it--also more than she expected." After which Chad
observed: "But she doesn't like ME. In fact she hates me."

Strether's interest grew. "Then why does she want you at home?"

"Because when you hate you want to triumph, and if she should get me
neatly stuck there she WOULD triumph."

Strether followed afresh, but looking as he went. "Certainly--in a
manner. But it would scarce be a triumph worth having if, once
entangled, feeling her dislike and possibly conscious in time of a
certain quantity of your own, you should on the spot make yourself
unpleasant to her."

"Ah," said Chad, "she can bear ME--could bear me at least at home. It's
my being there that would be her triumph. She hates me in Paris."

"She hates in other words--"

"Yes, THAT'S it!"--Chad had quickly understood this understanding;
which formed on the part of each as near an approach as they had yet
made to naming Madame de Vionnet. The limitations of their
distinctness didn't, however, prevent its fairly lingering in the air
that it was this lady Mrs. Pocock hated. It added one more touch
moreover to their established recognition of the rare intimacy of
Chad's association with her. He had never yet more twitched away the
last light veil from this phenomenon than in presenting himself as
confounded and submerged in the feeling she had created at Woollett.
"And I'll tell you who hates me too," he immediately went on.

Strether knew as immediately whom he meant, but with as prompt a
protest. "Ah no! Mamie doesn't hate--well," he caught himself in
time--"anybody at all. Mamie's beautiful."

Chad shook his head. "That's just why I mind it. She certainly
doesn't like me."

"How much do you mind it? What would you do for her?"

"Well, I'd like her if she'd like me. Really, really," Ch