 ushered in by that of Sarah's apprehension of Chad. That
they could talk of, and with a freedom purchased by their discretion in other
senses. The difficulty however was that they were reduced as yet to conjecture.
He had given them in the day or two as little of a lead as Sarah, and Madame de
Vionnet mentioned that she hadn't seen him since his sister's arrival.
    »And does that strike you as such an age?«
    She met it in all honesty. »Oh I won't pretend I don't miss him. Sometimes I
see him every day. Our friendship's like that. Make what you will of it!« she
whimsically smiled; a little flicker of the kind, occasional in her, that had
more than once moved him to wonder what he might best make of her. »But he's
perfectly right,« she hastened to add, »and I wouldn't have him fail in any way
at present for the world. I'd sooner not see him for three months. I begged him
to be beautiful to them, and he fully feels it for himself.«
    Strether turned away under his quick perception; she was so odd a mixture of
lucidity and mystery. She fell in at moments with the theory about her he most
cherished, and she seemed at others to blow it into air. She spoke now as if her
art were all an innocence, and then again as if her innocence were all an art.
»Oh he's giving himself up, and he'll do so to the end. How can he but want, now
that it's within reach, his full impression? - which is much more important, you
know, than either yours or mine. But he's just soaking,« Strether said as he
came back; »he's going in conscientiously for a saturation. I'm bound to say he
is very good.«
    »Ah,« she quietly replied, »to whom do you say it?« And then more quietly
still: »He's capable of anything.«
    Strether more than reaffirmed - »Oh he's excellent. I more and more like,«
he insisted, »to see him with them;« though the oddity of this tone between them
grew sharper for him even while they spoke. It placed the young man so before
them as the result of her interest and the product of her genius, acknowledged
so her part in the phenomenon and made the phenomenon so rare,
