 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
