. Pocock will produce them; she'll bring over the whole
collection. They'll be,« he added with a pensive smile, »a part of the fun you
speak of.«
    She was quite in the current now and floating by his side. »It's Mamie - so
far as I've had it from you - who'll be their great card.« And then as his
contemplative silence wasn't a denial she significantly added: »I think I'm
sorry for her.«
    »I think I am!« - and Strether sprang up, moving about a little as her eyes
followed him. »But it can't be helped.«
    »You mean her coming out can't be?«
    He explained after another turn what he meant. »The only way for her not to
come is for me to go home - as I believe that on the spot I could prevent it.
But the difficulty as to that is that if I do go home -«
    »I see, I see« - she had easily understood. »Mr. Newsome will do the same,
and that's not« - she laughed out now - »to be thought of.«
    Strether had no laugh; he had only a quiet comparatively placid look that
might have shown him as proof against ridicule. »Strange, isn't it?«
    They had, in the matter that so much interested them, come so far as this
without sounding another name - to which however their present momentary silence
was full of a conscious reference. Strether's question was a sufficient
implication of the weight it had gained with him during the absence of his
hostess; and just for that reason a single gesture from her could pass for him
as a vivid answer. Yet he was answered still better when she said in a moment:
»Will Mr. Newsome introduce his sister -?«
    »To Madame de Vionnet?« Strether spoke the name at last. »I shall be greatly
surprised if he doesn't.«
    She seemed to gaze at the possibility. »You mean you've thought of it and
you're prepared.«
    »I've thought of it and I'm prepared.«
    It was to her visitor now that she applied her consideration. »Bon! You are
magnificent!«
    »Well,« he answered after a pause and a little wearily, but still standing
there before her - »well, that's what, just once in all my dull days, I think
