t leave her BEFORE. When you've got all that can be
got--I don't say," he added a trifle grimly. "That will be the proper
time. But as, for you, from such a woman, there will always be
something to be got, my remark's not a wrong to her." Chad let him go
on, showing every decent deference, showing perhaps also a candid
curiosity for this sharper accent. "I remember you, you know, as you
were."

"An awful ass, wasn't I?"

The response was as prompt as if he had pressed a spring; it had a
ready abundance at which he even winced; so that he took a moment to
meet it. "You certainly then wouldn't have seemed worth all you've let
me in for. You've defined yourself better. Your value has quintupled."

"Well then, wouldn't that be enough--?"

Chad had risked it jocosely, but Strether remained blank. "Enough?"

"If one SHOULD wish to live on one's accumulations?" After which,
however, as his friend appeared cold to the joke, the young man as
easily dropped it. "Of course I really never forget, night or day,
what I owe her. I owe her everything. I give you my word of honour,"
he frankly rang out, "that I'm not a bit tired of her." Strether at
this only gave him a stare: the way youth could express itself was
again and again a wonder. He meant no harm, though he might after all
be capable of much; yet he spoke of being "tired" of her almost as he
might have spoken of being tired of roast mutton for dinner. "She has
never for a moment yet bored me--never been wanting, as the cleverest
women sometimes are, in tact. She has never talked about her tact--as
even they too sometimes talk; but she has always had it. She has never
had it more"--he handsomely made the point--"than just lately." And he
scrupulously went further. "She has never been anything I could call a
burden."

Strether for a moment said nothing; then he spoke gravely, with his
shade of dryness deepened. "Oh if you didn't do her justice--!"

"I SHOULD be a beast, eh?"

Strether devoted no time to saying what he would be; THAT, visibly,
would take them far. If there was nothing for it but to repeat,
however, repetition was no mistake. "You owe her everything--very much
more than she can ever owe you. You've in other words duties to her,
of the most positive sort; and I don't see what other duties--as the
others are presented to you--can be held to go before them."

Chad looked at him with a smile. "And you know of course about the
others, e