opined in favour of his recuperation, her own last word must have been
that she should feel easier in seeing for herself. That was it,
unmistakeably; she WAS seeing for herself. What he could stand was
thus, in these moments, in the balance for Strether, who reflected, as
he became fully aware of it, that he must properly brace himself. He
wanted fully to appear to stand all he might; and there was a certain
command of the situation for him in this very wish not to look too much
at sea. She was ready with everything, but so, sufficiently, was he;
that is he was at one point the more prepared of the two, inasmuch as,
for all her cleverness, she couldn't produce on the spot--and it was
surprising--an account of the motive of her note. He had the advantage
that his pronouncing her "all right" gave him for an enquiry. "May I
ask, delighted as I've been to come, if you've wished to say something
special?" He spoke as if she might have seen he had been waiting for
it--not indeed with discomfort, but with natural interest. Then he saw
that she was a little taken aback, was even surprised herself at the
detail she had neglected--the only one ever yet; having somehow assumed
he would know, would recognise, would leave some things not to be said.
She looked at him, however, an instant as if to convey that if he
wanted them ALL--!

"Selfish and vulgar--that's what I must seem to you. You've done
everything for me, and here I am as if I were asking for more. But it
isn't," she went on, "because I'm afraid--though I AM of course afraid,
as a woman in my position always is. I mean it isn't because one lives
in terror--it isn't because of that one is selfish, for I'm ready to
give you my word to-night that I don't care; don't care what still may
happen and what I may lose. I don't ask you to raise your little
finger for me again, nor do I wish so much as to mention to you what
we've talked of before, either my danger or my safety, or his mother,
or his sister, or the girl he may marry, or the fortune he may make or
miss, or the right or the wrong, of any kind, he may do. If after the
help one has had from you one can't either take care of one's self or
simply hold one's tongue, one must renounce all claim to be an object
of interest. It's in the name of what I DO care about that I've tried
still to keep hold of you. How can I be indifferent," she asked, "to
how I appear to you?" And as he found himself unable immediatel