« - and our friend spoke now with a yearning that was really earnest - »at
least to have done that.«
    »To have married me off - without a penny?«
    »Well, I shan't live long; and I give you my word, now and here, that I'll
leave you every penny of my own. I haven't many, unfortunately, but you shall
have them all. And Miss Pocock, I think, has a few. I want,« Strether went on,
»to have been at least to that extent constructive - even expiatory. I've been
sacrificing so to strange gods that I feel I want to put on record, somehow, my
fidelity - fundamentally unchanged after all - to our own. I feel as if my hands
were embrued with the blood of monstrous alien altars - of another faith
altogether. There it is - it's done.« And then he further explained. »It took
hold of me because the idea of getting her quite out of the way for Chad helps
to clear my ground.«
    The young man, at this, bounced about, and it brought them face to face in
admitted amusement. »You want me to marry as a convenience to Chad?«
    »No,« Strether debated - »he doesn't care whether you marry or not. It's as
a convenience simply to my own plan for him.«
    »Simply!« - and little Bilham's concurrence was in itself a lively comment.
»Thank you. But I thought,« he continued, »you had exactly no plan for him.«
    »Well then call it my plan for myself - which may be well, as you say, to
have none. His situation, don't you see? is reduced now to the bare facts one
has to recognise. Mamie doesn't want him, and he doesn't want Mamie: so much as
that these days have made clear. It's a thread we can wind up and tuck in.«
    But little Bilham still questioned. »You can - since you seem so much to
want to. But why should I?«
    Poor Strether thought it over, but was obliged of course to admit that his
demonstration did superficially fail. »Seriously, there is no reason. It's my
affair - I must do it alone. I've only my fantastic need of making my dose
stiff.«
    Little Bilham wondered. »What do you call your dose?«
    »Why what I
