She might have known--!"

"Might have known you don't?" Miss Gostrey asked as he let it drop.
"She was sure of it at first," she pursued as he said nothing; "she
took it for granted, at least, as any woman in her position would. But
after that she changed her mind; she believed you believed--"

"Well?"--he was curious.

"Why in her sublimity. And that belief had remained with her, I make
out, till the accident of the other day opened your eyes. For that it
did," said Maria, "open them--"

"She can't help"--he had taken it up--"being aware? No," he mused; "I
suppose she thinks of that even yet."

"Then they WERE closed? There you are! However, if you see her as the
most charming woman in the world it comes to the same thing. And if
you'd like me to tell her that you do still so see her--!" Miss
Gostrey, in short, offered herself for service to the end.

It was an offer he could temporarily entertain; but he decided. "She
knows perfectly how I see her."

"Not favourably enough, she mentioned to me, to wish ever to see her
again. She told me you had taken a final leave of her. She says
you've done with her."

"So I have."

Maria had a pause; then she spoke as if for conscience. "She wouldn't
have done with YOU. She feels she has lost you--yet that she might
have been better for you."

"Oh she has been quite good enough!" Strether laughed.

"She thinks you and she might at any rate have been friends."

"We might certainly. That's just"--he continued to laugh--"why I'm
going."

It was as if Maria could feel with this then at last that she had done
her best for each. But she had still an idea. "Shall I tell her that?"

"No. Tell her nothing."

"Very well then." To which in the next breath Miss Gostrey added: "Poor
dear thing!"

Her friend wondered; then with raised eyebrows: "Me?"

"Oh no. Marie de Vionnet."

He accepted the correction, but he wondered still. "Are you so sorry
for her as that?"

It made her think a moment--made her even speak with a smile. But she
didn't really retract. "I'm sorry for us all!"

IV

He was to delay no longer to re-establish communication with Chad, and
we have just seen that he had spoken to Miss Gostrey of this intention
on hearing from her of the young man's absence. It was not moreover
only the assurance so given that prompted him; it was the need of
causing his conduct to square with another profession still--the motive
he had described t