Little Bilham looked him full in the face."Because it's a virtuous attachment."This had settled the question so effectually for the time--that is for the next few days--that it had given Strether almost a new lease of life.It must be added however that, thanks to his constant habit of shaking the bottle in which life handed him the wine of experience, he presently found the taste of the lees rising as usual into his draught.His imagination had in other words already dealt with his young friend's assertion; of which it had made something that sufficiently came out on the very next occasion of his seeing Maria Gostrey.This occasion moreover had been determined promptly by a new circumstance--a circumstance he was the last man to leave her for a day in ignorance of."When Isaid to him last night," he immediately began, "that without some definite word from him now that will enable me to speak to them over there of our sailing--or at least of mine, giving them some sort of date--my responsibility becomes uncomfortable and my situation awkward; when I said that to him what do you think was his reply?" And then as she this time gave it up: "Why that he has two particular friends, two ladies, mother and daughter, about to arrive in Paris--coming back from an absence; and that he wants me so furiously to meet them, know them and like them, that Ishall oblige him by kindly not bringing our business to a crisis till he has had a chance to see them again himself.Is that,"Strether enquired, "the way he's going to try to get off? These are the people," he explained, "that he must have gone down to see before I arrived.They're the best friends he has in the world, and they take more interest than any one else in what concerns him.As I'm his next best he sees a thousand reasons why we should comfortably meet.He hasn't broached the question sooner because their return was uncertain--seemed in fact for the present impossible.But he more than intimates that--if you can believe it--their desire to make my acquaintance has had to do with their surmounting difficulties.""They're dying to see you?" Miss Gostrey asked.
"Dying.Of course," said Strether, "they're the virtuous attachment."He had already told her about that--had seen her the day after his talk with little Bilham; and they had then threshed out together the bearing of the revelation.She had helped him to put into it the logic in which little Bilham had left it slightly deficient Strether hadn't pressed him as to the object of the preference so unexpectedly described; feeling in the presence of it, with one of his irrepressible scruples, a delicacy from which he had in the quest of the quite other article worked himself sufficiently free.He had held off, as on a small principle of pride, from permitting his young friend to mention a name; wishing to make with this the great point that Chad's virtuous attachments were none of his business.He had wanted from the first not to think too much of his dignity, but that was no reason for not allowing it any little benefit that might turn up.He had often enough wondered to what degree his interference might pass for interested; so that there was no want of luxury in letting it be seen whenever he could that he didn't interfere.That had of course at the same time not deprived him of the further luxury of much private astonishment; which however he had reduced to some order before communicating his knowledge.When he had done this at last it was with the remark that, surprised as Miss Gostrey might, like himself, at first be, she would probably agree with him on reflexion that such an account of the matter did after all fit the confirmed appearances.Nothing certainly, on all the indications, could have been a greater change for him than a virtuous attachment, and since they had been in search of the "word" as the French called it, of that change, little Bilham's announcement--though so long and so oddly delayed--would serve as well as another.She had assured Strether in fact after a pause that the more she thought of it the more it did serve; and yet her assurance hadn't so weighed with him as that before they parted he hadn't ventured to challenge her sincerity.Didn't she believe the attachment was virtuous?--he had made sure of her again with the aid of that question.The tidings he brought her on this second occasion were moreover such as would help him to make surer still.
She showed at first none the less as only amused."You say there are two? An attachment to them both then would, I suppose, almost necessarily be innocent."Our friend took the point, but he had his clue."Mayn't he be still in the stage of not quite knowing which of them, mother or daughter, he likes best?"She gave it more thought."Oh it must be the daughter--at his age.""Possibly.Yet what do we know," Strether asked, "about hers? She may be old enough.""Old enough for what?"
"Why to marry Chad.That may be, you know, what they want.And if Chad wants it too, and little Bilham wants it, and even we, at a pinch, could do with it--that is if she doesn't prevent repatriation --why it may be plain sailing yet."It was always the case for him in these counsels that each of his remarks, as it came, seemed to drop into a deeper well.He had at all events to wait a moment to hear the slight splash of this one.
"I don't see why if Mr.Newsome wants to marry the young lady he hasn't already done it or hasn't been prepared with some statement to you about it.And if he both wants to marry her and is on good terms with them why isn't he 'free'?"Strether, responsively, wondered indeed."Perhaps the girl herself doesn't like him.""Then why does he speak of them to you as he does?"Strether's mind echoed the question, but also again met it."Perhaps it's with the mother he's on good terms.""As against the daughter?"