Waymarsh meanwhile sat opposite him with their hostess between;and Miss Gostrey spoke of herself as an instructor of youth introducing her little charges to a work that was one of the glories of literature.The glory was happily unobjectionable, and the little charges were candid; for herself she had travelled that road and she merely waited on their innocence.But she referred in due time to their absent friend, whom it was clear they should have to give up."He either won't have got your note," she said, "or you won't have got his: he has had some kind of hindrance, and, of course, for that matter, you know, a man never writes about coming to a box." She spoke as if, with her look, it might have been Waymarsh who had written to the youth, and the latter's face showed a mixture of austerity and anguish.She went on however as if to meet this."He's far and away, you know, the best of them.""The best of whom, ma'am?"
"Why of all the long procession--the boys, the girls, or the old men and old women as they sometimes really are; the hope, as one may say, of our country.They've all passed, year after year; but there has been no one in particular I've ever wanted to stop.Ifeel--don't YOU?--that I want to stop little Bilham; he's so exactly right as he is." She continued to talk to Waymarsh."He's too delightful.If he'll only not spoil it! But they always WILL;they always do; they always have."
"I don't think Waymarsh knows," Strether said after a moment, "quite what it's open to Bilham to spoil.""It can't be a good American," Waymarsh lucidly enough replied;"for it didn't strike me the young man had developed much in THATshape."
"Ah," Miss Gostrey sighed, "the name of the good American is as easily given as taken away! What IS it, to begin with, to BE one, and what's the extraordinary hurry? Surely nothing that's so pressing was ever so little defined.It's such an order, really, that before we cook you the dish we must at least have your receipt.Besides the poor chicks have time! What I've seen so often spoiled," she pursued, "is the happy attitude itself, the state of faith and--what shall I call it?--the sense of beauty.
You're right about him"--she now took in Strether; "little Bilham has them to a charm, we must keep little Bilham along." Then she was all again for Waymarsh."The others have all wanted so dreadfully to do something, and they've gone and done it in too many cases indeed.It leaves them never the same afterwards; the charm's always somehow broken.Now HE, I think, you know, really won't.He won't do the least dreadful little thing.We shall continue to enjoy him just as he is.No--he's quite beautiful.He sees everything.He isn't a bit ashamed.He has every scrap of the courage of it that one could ask.Only think what he MIGHT do.
One wants really--for fear of some accident--to keep him in view.
At this very moment perhaps what mayn't he be up to? I've had my disappointments--the poor things are never really safe; or only at least when you have them under your eye.One can never completely trust them.One's uneasy, and I think that's why I most miss him now."She had wound up with a laugh of enjoyment over her embroidery of her idea--an enjoyment that her face communicated to Strether, who almost wished none the less at this moment that she would let poor Waymarsh alone.HE knew more or less what she meant; but the fact wasn't a reason for her not pretending to Waymarsh that he didn't.It was craven of him perhaps, but he would, for the high amenity of the occasion, have liked Waymarsh not to be so sure of his wit.Her recognition of it gave him away and, before she had done with him or with that article, would give him worse.What was he, all the same, to do? He looked across the box at his friend;their eyes met; something queer and stiff, something that bore on the situation but that it was better not to touch, passed in silence between them.Well, the effect of it for Strether was an abrupt reaction, a final impatience of his own tendency to temporise.Where was that taking him anyway? It was one of the quiet instants that sometimes settle more matters than the outbreaks dear to the historic muse.The only qualification of the quietness was the synthetic "Oh hang it!" into which Strether's share of the silence soundlessly flowered.It represented, this mute ejaculation, a final impulse to burn his ships.These ships, to the historic muse, may seem of course mere cockles, but when he presently spoke to Miss Gostrey it was with the sense at least of applying the torch."Is it then a conspiracy?""Between the two young men? Well, I don't pretend to be a seer or a prophetess," she presently replied; "but if I'm simply a woman of sense he's working for you to-night.I don't quite know how--but it's in my bones." And she looked at him at last as if, little material as she yet gave him, he'd really understand."For an opinion THAT'S my opinion.He makes you out too well not to.""Not to work for me to-night?" Strether wondered."Then I hope he isn't doing anything very bad.""They've got you," she portentously answered.
"Do you mean he IS--?"
"They've got you," she merely repeated.Though she disclaimed the prophetic vision she was at this instant the nearest approach he had ever met to the priestess of the oracle.The light was in her eyes."You must face it now."He faced it on the spot."They HAD arranged--?""Every move in the game.And they've been arranging ever since.He has had every day his little telegram from Cannes."It made Strether open his eyes."Do you KNOW that?""I do better.I see it.This was, before I met him, what Iwondered whether I WAS to see.But as soon as I met him I ceased to wonder, and our second meeting made me sure.I took him all in.
He was acting--he is still--on his daily instructions.""So that Chad has done the whole thing?"
"Oh no--not the whole.WE'VE done some of it.You and I and 'Europe.'""Europe--yes," Strether mused.