VOLUME II - BOOK EIGHTH - CHAPTER III

As the door of Mrs. Pocock's salon was pushed open for him, the

next day, well before noon, he was reached by a voice with a

charming sound that made him just falter before crossing the

threshold. Madame de Vionnet was already on the field, and this

gave the drama a quicker pace than he felt it as yet--though his

suspense had increased--in the power of any act of his own to do.

He had spent the previous evening with all his old friends

together yet he would still have described himself as quite in the

dark in respect to a forecast of their influence on his situation.

It was strange now, none the less, that in the light of this

unexpected note of her presence he felt Madame de Vionnet a part

of that situation as she hadn't even yet been. She was alone, he

found himself assuming, with Sarah, and there was a bearing in

that--somehow beyond his control--on his personal fate. Yet she

was only saying something quite easy and independent--the thing

she had come, as a good friend of Chad's, on purpose to say.

"There isn't anything at all--? I should be so delighted."

It was clear enough, when they were there before him, how she had

been received. He saw this, as Sarah got up to greet him, from

something fairly hectic in Sarah's face. He saw furthermore that

they weren't, as had first come to him, alone together; he was at

no loss as to the identity of the broad high back presented to

him in the embrasure of the window furthest from the door.

Waymarsh, whom he had to-day not yet seen, whom he only knew to

have left the hotel before him, and who had taken part, the night

previous, on Mrs. Pocock's kind invitation, conveyed by Chad, in

the entertainment, informal but cordial, promptly offered by that

lady--Waymarsh had anticipated him even as Madame de Vionnet had

done, and, with his hands in his pockets and his attitude

unaffected by Strether's entrance, was looking out, in marked

detachment, at the Rue de Rivoli. The latter felt it in the air--

it was immense how Waymarsh could mark things---that he had remained

deeply dissociated from the overture to their hostess that we have

recorded on Madame de Vionnet's side. He had, conspicuously, tact,

besides a stiff general view; and this was why he had left Mrs.

Pocock to struggle alone. He would outstay the visitor; he would

unmistakeably wait; to what had he been doomed for months past but

waiting? Therefore she was to feel that she had him in reserve.

What support she drew from this was still to be seen, for, although

Sarah was vividly bright, she had given herself up for the moment

to an ambiguous flushed formalism. She had had to reckon more

quickly than she expected; but it concerned her first of all to

signify that she was not to be taken unawares. Strether arrived

precisely in time for her showing it. "Oh you're too good; but I

don't think I feel quite helpless. I have my brother--and these

American friends. And then you know I've been to Paris. I KNOW

Paris," said Sally Pocock in a tone that breathed a certain chill

on Strether's heart.

"Ah but a woman, in this tiresome place where everything's always

changing, a woman of good will," Madame de Vionnet threw off, "can

always help a woman. I'm sure you 'know'--but we know perhaps

different things." She too, visibly, wished to make no mistake; but

it was a fear of a different order and more kept out of sight. She

smiled in welcome at Strether; she greeted him more familiarly than

Mrs. Pocock; she put out her hand to him without moving from her

place; and it came to him in the course of a minute and in the

oddest way that--yes, positively--she was giving him over to ruin.

She was all kindness and ease, but she couldn't help so giving him;

she was exquisite, and her being just as she was poured for Sarah a

sudden rush of meaning into his own equivocations. How could she

know how she was hurting him? She wanted to show as simple and

humble--in the degree compatible with operative charm; but it was

just this that seemed to put him on her side. She struck him as

dressed, as arranged, as prepared infinitely to conciliate--with

the very poetry of good taste in her view of the conditions of her

early call. She was ready to advise about dressmakers and shops;

she held herself wholly at the disposition of Chad's family.

Strether noticed her card on the table--her coronet and her

"Comtesse"--and the imagination was sharp in him of certain private

adjustments in Sarah's mind. She had never, he was sure, sat with a

"Comtesse" before, and such was the specimen of that class he had

been keeping to play on her. She had crossed the sea very

particularly for a look at her; but he read in Madame de Vionnet's

own eyes that this curiosity hadn't been so successfully met as

that she herself wouldn't now have more than ever need of him. She

looked much as she had looked to him that morning at Notre Dame; he

noted in fact the suggestive sameness of her discreet and delicate

dress. It seemed to speak--perhaps a little prematurely or too

finely--of the sense in which she would help Mrs. Pocock with the

shops. The way that lady took her in, moreover, added depth to his

impression of what Miss Gostrey, by their common wisdom, had

escaped. He winced as he saw himself but for that timely prudence

ushering in Maria as a guide and an example. There was however a

touch of relief for him in his glimpse, so far as he had got it, of

Sarah's line. She "knew Paris." Madame de Vionnet had, for that

matter, lightly taken this up. "Ah then you've a turn for that, an

affinity that belongs to your family. Your brother, though his long

experience makes a difference, I admit, has become one of us in a

marvellous way." And she appealed to Strether in the manner of a

woman who could always glide off with smoothness into another

subject. Wasn't HE struck with the way Mr. Newsome had made the

place his own, and hadn't he been in a position to profit by his

friend's wondrous expertness?

Strether felt the bravery, at the least, of her presenting herself

so promptly to sound that note, and yet asked himself what other

note, after all, she COULD strike from the moment she presented

herself at all. She could meet Mrs. Pocock only on the ground of

the obvious, and what feature of Chad's situation was more eminent

than the fact that he had created for himself a new set of

circumstances? Unless she hid herself altogether she could show but

as one of these, an illustration of his domiciled and indeed of his

confirmed condition. And the consciousness of all this in her

charming eyes was so clear and fine that as she thus publicly drew

him into her boat she produced in him such a silent agitation as he

was not to fail afterwards to denounce as pusillanimous. "Ah don't

be so charming to me!--for it makes us intimate, and after all what

IS between us when I've been so tremendously on my guard and have

seen you but half a dozen times?" He recognised once more the

perverse law that so inveterately governed his poor personal

aspects: it would be exactly LIKE the way things always turned out

for him that he should affect Mrs. Pocock and Waymarsh as launched

in a relation in which he had really never been launched at all.

They were at this very moment--they could only be--attributing to

him the full licence of it, and all by the operation of her own

tone with him; whereas his sole licence had been to cling with

intensity to the brink, not to dip so much as a toe into the flood.

But the flicker of his fear on this occasion was not, as may be

added, to repeat itself; it sprang up, for its moment, only to die

down and then go out for ever. To meet his fellow visitor's

invocation and, with Sarah's brilliant eyes on him, answer, WAS

quite sufficiently to step into her boat. During the rest of the

time her visit lasted he felt himself proceed to each of the proper

offices, successively, for helping to keep the adventurous skiff

afloat. It rocked beneath him, but he settled himself in his place.

He took up an oar and, since he was to have the credit of pulling,

pulled.

"That will make it all the pleasanter if it so happens that we DO

meet," Madame de Vionnet had further observed in reference to Mrs.

Pocock's mention of her initiated state; and she had immediately

added that, after all, her hostess couldn't be in need with the

good offices of Mr. Strether so close at hand. "It's he, I gather,

who has learnt to know his Paris, and to love it, better than any

one ever before in so short a time; so that between him and your

brother, when it comes to the point, how can you possibly want for

good guidance? The great thing, Mr. Strether will show you," she

smiled, "is just to let one's self go."

"Oh I've not let myself go very far," Strether answered, feeling

quite as if he had been called upon to hint to Mrs. Pocock how

Parisians could talk. "I'm only afraid of showing I haven't let

myself go far enough. I've taken a good deal of time, but I must

quite have had the air of not budging from one spot." He looked at

Sarah in a manner that he thought she might take as engaging, and

he made, under Madame de Vionnet's protection, as it were, his

first personal point. "What has really happened has been that, all

the while, I've done what I came out for."

Yet it only at first gave Madame de Vionnet a chance immediately to

take him up. "You've renewed acquaintance with your friend--you've

learnt to know him again." She spoke with such cheerful helpfulness

that they might, in a common cause, have been calling together and

pledged to mutual aid.

Waymarsh, at this, as if he had been in question, straightway

turned from the window. "Oh yes, Countess--he has renewed

acquaintance with ME, and he HAS, I guess, learnt something about

me, though I don't know how much he has liked it. It's for Strether

himself to say whether he has felt it justifies his course."

"Oh but YOU," said the Countess gaily, "are not in the least what

he came out for--is he really, Strether? and I hadn't you at all in

my mind. I was thinking of Mr. Newsome, of whom we think so much

and with whom, precisely, Mrs. Pocock has given herself the

opportunity to take up threads. What a pleasure for you both!"

Madame de Vionnet, with her eyes on Sarah, bravely continued.

Mrs. Pocock met her handsomely, but Strether quickly saw she meant

to accept no version of her movements or plans from any other lips.

She required no patronage and no support, which were but other

names for a false position; she would show in her own way what she

chose to show, and this she expressed with a dry glitter that

recalled to him a fine Woollett winter morning. "I've never wanted

for opportunities to see my brother. We've many things to think of

at home, and great responsibilities and occupations, and our home's

not an impossible place. We've plenty of reasons," Sarah continued

a little piercingly, "for everything we do"--and in short she

wouldn't give herself the least little scrap away. But she added as

one who was always bland and who could afford a concession: "I've

come because--well, because we do come."

"Ah then fortunately!"--Madame de Vionnet breathed it to the air.

Five minutes later they were on their feet for her to take leave,

standing together in an affability that had succeeded in surviving

a further exchange of remarks; only with the emphasised appearance

on Waymarsh's part of a tendency to revert, in a ruminating manner

and as with an instinctive or a precautionary lightening of his

tread, to an open window and his point of vantage. The glazed and

gilded room, all red damask, ormolu, mirrors, clocks, looked south,

and the shutters were bowed upon the summer morning; but the

Tuileries garden and what was beyond it, over which the whole place

hung, were things visible through gaps; so that the far-spreading

presence of Paris came up in coolness, dimness and invitation, in

the twinkle of gilt-tipped palings, the crunch of gravel, the click

of hoofs, the crack of whips, things that suggested some parade of

the circus. "I think it probable," said Mrs. Pocock, "that I shall

have the opportunity of going to my brother's I've no doubt it's

very pleasant indeed." She spoke as to Strether, but her face was

turned with an intensity of brightness to Madame de Vionnet, and

there was a moment during which, while she thus fronted her, our

friend expected to hear her add: "I'm much obliged to you, I'm

sure, for inviting me there." He guessed that for five seconds

these words were on the point of coming; he heard them as clearly

as if they had been spoken; but he presently knew they had just

failed--knew it by a glance, quick and fine, from Madame de

Vionnet, which told him that she too had felt them in the air, but

that the point had luckily not been made in any manner requiring

notice. This left her free to reply only to what had been said.

"That the Boulevard Malesherbes may be common ground for us offers

me the best prospect I see for the pleasure of meeting you again."

"Oh I shall come to see you, since you've been so good": and Mrs.

Pocock looked her invader well in the eyes. The flush in Sarah's

cheeks had by this time settled to a small definite crimson spot

that was not without its own bravery; she held her head a good deal

up, and it came to Strether that of the two, at this moment, she

was the one who most carried out the idea of a Countess. He quite

took in, however, that she would really return her visitor's

civility: she wouldn't report again at Woollett without at least so

much producible history as that in her pocket.

"I want extremely to be able to show you my little daughter."

Madame de Vionnet went on; "and I should have brought her with me

if I hadn't wished first to ask your leave. I was in hopes I should

perhaps find Miss Pocock, of whose being with you I've heard from

Mr. Newsome and whose acquaintance I should so much like my child

to make. If I have the pleasure of seeing her and you do permit it

I shall venture to ask her to be kind to Jeanne. Mr. Strether will

tell you"--she beautifully kept it up--"that my poor girl is gentle

and good and rather lonely. They've made friends, he and she, ever

so happily, and he doesn't, I believe, think ill of her. As for

Jeanne herself he has had the same success with her that I know he

has had here wherever he has turned." She seemed to ask him for

permission to say these things, or seemed rather to take it, softly

and happily, with the ease of intimacy, for granted, and he had

quite the consciousness now that not to meet her at any point more

than halfway would be odiously, basely to abandon her. Yes, he was

WITH her, and, opposed even in this covert, this semi-safe fashion

to those who were not, he felt, strangely and confusedly, but

excitedly, inspiringly, how much and how far. It was as if he had

positively waited in suspense for something from her that would let

him in deeper, so that he might show her how he could take it. And

what did in fact come as she drew out a little her farewell served

sufficiently the purpose. "As his success is a matter that I'm sure

he'll never mention for himself, I feel, you see, the less scruple;

which it's very good of me to say, you know, by the way," she added

as she addressed herself to him; "considering how little direct

advantage I've gained from your triumphs with ME. When does one

ever see you? I wait at home and I languish. You'll have rendered

me the service, Mrs. Pocock, at least," she wound up, "of giving me

one of my much-too-rare glimpses of this gentleman."

"I certainly should be sorry to deprive you of anything that seems

so much, as you describe it, your natural due. Mr. Strether and I

are very old friends," Sarah allowed, "but the privilege of his

society isn't a thing I shall quarrel about with any one."

"And yet, dear Sarah," he freely broke in, "I feel, when I hear you

say that, that you don't quite do justice to the important truth of

the extent to which--as you're also mine--I'm your natural due. I

should like much better," he laughed, "to see you fight for me."

She met him, Mrs. Pocock, on this, with an arrest of speech--with a

certain breathlessness, as he immediately fancied, on the score of

a freedom for which she wasn't quite prepared. It had flared up--

for all the harm he had intended by it--because, confoundedly, he

didn't want any more to be afraid about her than he wanted to be

afraid about Madame de Vionnet. He had never, naturally, called her

anything but Sarah at home, and though he had perhaps never quite

so markedly invoked her as his "dear," that was somehow partly

because no occasion had hitherto laid so effective a trap for it.

But something admonished him now that it was too late--unless

indeed it were possibly too early; and that he at any rate

shouldn't have pleased Mrs. Pocock the more by it. "Well, Mr.

Strether--!" she murmured with vagueness, yet with sharpness, while

her crimson spot burned a trifle brighter and he was aware that

this must be for the present the limit of her response. Madame de

Vionnet had already, however, come to his aid, and Waymarsh, as if

for further participation, moved again back to them. It was true

that the aid rendered by Madame de Vionnet was questionable; it was

a sign that, for all one might confess to with her, and for all she

might complain of not enjoying, she could still insidiously show

how much of the material of conversation had accumulated between

them.

"The real truth is, you know, that you sacrifice one without mercy

to dear old Maria. She leaves no room in your life for anybody

else. Do you know," she enquired of Mrs. Pocock, "about dear old

Maria? The worst is that Miss Gostrey is really a wonderful woman."

"Oh yes indeed," Strether answered for her, "Mrs. Pocock knows

about Miss Gostrey. Your mother, Sarah, must have told you about

her; your mother knows everything," he sturdily pursued. "And I

cordially admit," he added with his conscious gaiety of courage,

"that she's as wonderful a woman as you like."

"Ah it isn't I who 'like,' dear Mr. Strether, anything to do with

the matter!" Sarah Pocock promptly protested; "and I'm by no means

sure I have--from my mother or from any one else--a notion of whom

you're talking about."

"Well, he won't let you see her, you know," Madame de Vionnet

sympathetically threw in. "He never lets me--old friends as we are:

I mean as I am with Maria. He reserves her for his best hours;

keeps her consummately to himself; only gives us others the crumbs

of the feast."

"Well, Countess, I'VE had some of the crumbs," Waymarsh observed

with weight and covering her with his large look; which led her to

break in before he could go on.

"Comment donc, he shares her with YOU?" she exclaimed in droll

stupefaction. "Take care you don't have, before you go much

further, rather more of all ces dames than you may know what to do

with!"

But he only continued in his massive way. "I can post you about the

lady, Mrs. Pocock, so far as you may care to hear. I've seen her

quite a number of times, and I was practically present when they

made acquaintance. I've kept my eye on her right along, but I don't

know as there's any real harm in her."

"'Harm'?" Madame de Vionnet quickly echoed. "Why she's the dearest

and cleverest of all the clever and dear."

"Well, you run her pretty close, Countess," Waymarsh returned with

spirit; "though there's no doubt she's pretty well up in things.

She knows her way round Europe. Above all there's no doubt she does

love Strether."

"Ah but we all do that--we all love Strether: it isn't a merit!"

their fellow visitor laughed, keeping to her idea with a good

conscience at which our friend was aware that he marvelled, though

he trusted also for it, as he met her exquisitely expressive eyes,

to some later light.

The prime effect of her tone, however--and it was a truth which his

own eyes gave back to her in sad ironic play--could only be to make

him feel that, to say such things to a man in public, a woman must

practically think of him as ninety years old. He had turned

awkwardly, responsively red, he knew, at her mention of Maria

Gostrey; Sarah Pocock's presence--the particular quality of it--had

made this inevitable; and then he had grown still redder in

proportion as he hated to have shown anything at all. He felt

indeed that he was showing much, as, uncomfortably and almost in

pain, he offered up his redness to Waymarsh, who, strangely enough,

seemed now to be looking at him with a certain explanatory

yearning. Something deep--something built on their old old

relation--passed, in this complexity, between them; he got the

side-wind of a loyalty that stood behind all actual queer

questions. Waymarsh's dry bare humour--as it gave itself to be

taken--gloomed out to demand justice. "Well, if you talk of Miss

Barrace I've MY chance too," it appeared stiffly to nod, and it

granted that it was giving him away, but struggled to add that it

did so only to save him. The sombre glow stared it at him till it

fairly sounded out--"to save you, poor old man, to save you; to

save you in spite of yourself." Yet it was somehow just this

communication that showed him to himself as more than ever lost.

Still another result of it was to put before him as never yet that

between his comrade and the interest represented by Sarah there was

already a basis. Beyond all question now, yes: Waymarsh had been in

occult relation with Mrs. Newsome--out, out it all came in the very

effort of his face. "Yes, you're feeling my hand"--he as good as

proclaimed it; "but only because this at least I SHALL have got out

of the damned Old World: that I shall have picked up the pieces

into which it has caused you to crumble." It was as if in short,

after an instant, Strether had not only had it from him, but had

recognised that so far as this went the instant had cleared the

air. Our friend understood and approved; he had the sense that they

wouldn't otherwise speak of it. This would be all, and it would

mark in himself a kind of intelligent generosity. It was with grim

Sarah then--Sarah grim for all her grace--that Waymarsh had begun

at ten o'clock in the morning to save him. Well--if he COULD, poor

dear man, with his big bleak kindness! The upshot of which crowded

perception was that Strether, on his own side, still showed no more

than he absolutely had to. He showed the least possible by saying

to Mrs. Pocock after an interval much briefer than our glance at

the picture reflected in him: "Oh it's as true as they please!--

There's no Miss Gostrey for any one but me--not the least little

peep. I keep her to myself."

"Well, it's very good of you to notify me," Sarah replied without

looking at him and thrown for a moment by this discrimination, as

the direction of her eyes showed, upon a dimly desperate little

community with Madame de Vionnet. "But I hope I shan't miss her too

much."

Madame de Vionnet instantly rallied. "And you know--though it might

occur to one--it isn't in the least that he's ashamed of her.

She's really--in a way--extremely good-looking."

"Ah but extremely!" Strether laughed while he wondered at the odd

part he found thus imposed on him.

It continued to be so by every touch from Madame de Vionnet. "Well,

as I say, you know, I wish you would keep ME a little more to

yourself. Couldn't you name some day for me, some hour--and better

soon than late? I'll be at home whenever it best suits you.

There--I can't say fairer."

Strether thought a moment while Waymarsh and Mrs. Pocock affected

him as standing attentive. "I did lately call on you. Last week--

while Chad was out of town."

"Yes--and I was away, as it happened, too. You choose your moments

well. But don't wait for my next absence, for I shan't make

another," Madame de Vionnet declared, "while Mrs. Pocock's here."

"That vow needn't keep you long, fortunately," Sarah observed with

reasserted suavity. "I shall be at present but a short time in

Paris. I have my plans for other countries. I meet a number of

charming friends"--and her voice seemed to caress that description

of these persons.

"Ah then," her visitor cheerfully replied, "all the more reason!

To-morrow, for instance, or next day?" she continued to Strether.

"Tuesday would do for me beautifully."

"Tuesday then with pleasure."

"And at half-past five?--or at six?"

It was ridiculous, but Mrs. Pocock and Waymarsh struck him as

fairly waiting for his answer. It was indeed as if they were

arranged, gathered for a performance, the performance of "Europe"

by his confederate and himself. Well, the performance could only

go on. "Say five forty-five."

"Five forty-five--good." And now at last Madame de Vionnet must

leave them, though it carried, for herself, the performance a

little further. "I DID hope so much also to see Miss Pocock.

Mayn't I still?"

Sarah hesitated, but she rose equal. "She'll return your visit with

me. She's at present out with Mr. Pocock and my brother."

"I see--of course Mr. Newsome has everything to show them. He has

told me so much about her. My great desire's to give my daughter

the opportunity of making her acquaintance. I'm always on the

lookout for such chances for her. If I didn't bring her to-day it

was only to make sure first that you'd let me." After which the

charming woman risked a more intense appeal. "It wouldn't suit you

also to mention some near time, so that we shall be sure not to

lose you?" Strether on his side waited, for Sarah likewise had,

after all, to perform; and it occupied him to have been thus

reminded that she had stayed at home--and on her first morning of

Paris--while Chad led the others forth. Oh she was up to her eyes;

if she had stayed at home she had stayed by an understanding,

arrived at the evening before, that Waymarsh would come and find

her alone. This was beginning well--for a first day in Paris; and

the thing might be amusing yet. But Madame de Vionnet's earnestness

was meanwhile beautiful. "You may think me indiscreet, but I've

SUCH a desire my Jeanne shall know an American girl of the really

delightful kind. You see I throw myself for it on your charity."

The manner of this speech gave Strether such a sense of depths

below it and behind it as he hadn't yet had--ministered in a way

that almost frightened him to his dim divinations of reasons; but

if Sarah still, in spite of it, faltered, this was why he had time

for a sign of sympathy with her petitioner. "Let me say then, dear

lady, to back your plea, that Miss Mamie is of the most delightful

kind of all--is charming among the charming."

Even Waymarsh, though with more to produce on the subject, could

get into motion in time. "Yes, Countess, the American girl's a

thing that your country must at least allow ours the privilege to

say we CAN show you. But her full beauty is only for those who know

how to make use of her."

"Ah then," smiled Madame de Vionnet, "that's exactly what I want to

do. I'm sure she has much to teach us."

It was wonderful, but what was scarce less so was that Strether

found himself, by the quick effect of it, moved another way. "Oh

that may be! But don't speak of your own exquisite daughter, you

know, as if she weren't pure perfection. I at least won't take that

from you. Mademoiselle de Vionnet," he explained, in considerable

form, to Mrs. Pocock, "IS pure perfection. Mademoiselle de Vionnet

IS exquisite."

It had been perhaps a little portentous, but "Ah?" Sarah simply

glittered.

Waymarsh himself, for that matter, apparently recognised, in

respect to the facts, the need of a larger justice, and he had with

it an inclination to Sarah. "Miss Jane's strikingly handsome--

in the regular French style."

It somehow made both Strether and Madame de Vionnet laugh out,

though at the very moment he caught in Sarah's eyes, as glancing at

the speaker, a vague but unmistakeable "You too?" It made Waymarsh

in fact look consciously over her head. Madame de Vionnet

meanwhile, however, made her point in her own way. "I wish indeed I

could offer you my poor child as a dazzling attraction: it would

make one's position simple enough! She's as good as she can be, but

of course she's different, and the question is now--in the light of

the way things seem to go--if she isn't after all TOO different:

too different I mean from the splendid type every one is so agreed

that your wonderful country produces. On the other hand of course

Mr. Newsome, who knows it so well, has, as a good friend, dear kind

man that he is, done everything he can--to keep us from fatal

benightedness--for my small shy creature. Well," she wound up after

Mrs. Pocock had signified, in a murmur still a little stiff, that

she would speak to her own young charge on the question--"well, we

shall sit, my child and I, and wait and wait and wait for you." But

her last fine turn was for Strether. "Do speak of us in such a way--!"

"As that something can't but come of it? Oh something SHALL come of

it! I take a great interest!" he further declared; and in proof of

it, the next moment, he had gone with her down to her carriage.

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