 by itself will do sometimes as well. If it
doesn't do, in this case, at any rate, to deny that Marie's charming, it will do
at least to deny that she's good.«
    »What I claim is that she's good for Chad.«
    »You don't claim« - she seemed to like it clear - »that she's good for you.«
    But he continued without heeding. »That's what I wanted them to come out for
- to see for themselves if she's bad for him.«
    »And now that they've done so they won't admit that she's good even for
anything?«
    »They do think,« Strether presently admitted, »that she's on the whole about
as bad for me. But they're consistent of course, inasmuch as they've their clear
view of what's good for both of us.«
    »For you, to begin with« - Maria, all responsive, confined the question for
the moment - »to eliminate from your existence and if possible even from your
memory the dreadful creature that I must gruesomely shadow forth for them, even
more than to eliminate the distincter evil - thereby a little less portentous -
of the person whose confederate you've suffered yourself to become. However,
that's comparatively simple. You can easily, at the worst, after all, give me
up.«
    »I can easily at the worst, after all, give you up.« The irony was so
obvious that it needed no care. »I can easily at the worst, after all, even
forget you.«
    »Call that then workable. But Mr. Newsome has much more to forget. How can
he do it?«
    »Ah there again we are! That's just what I was to have made him do; just
where I was to have worked with him and helped.«
    She took it in silence and without attenuation - as if perhaps from very
familiarity with the facts; and her thought made a connexion without showing the
links. »Do you remember how we used to talk at Chester and in London about my
seeing you through?« She spoke as of far-off things and as if they had spent
weeks at the places she named.
    »It's just what you are doing.«
    »Ah but the worst - since you've left such a margin - may be still to come.
You may yet break down.«
    »
