'm not thinking of his mother now. I'm thinking of the plan of which
I was the mouthpiece, which, as soon as we met, I put before him as persuasively
as I knew how, and which was drawn up, as it were, in complete ignorance of all
that, in this last long period, has been happening to him. It took no account
whatever of the impression I was here on the spot immediately to begin to
receive from him - impressions of which I feel sure I'm far from having had the
last.«
    Miss Gostrey had a smile of the most genial criticism. »So your idea is -
more or less - to stay out of curiosity?«
    »Call it what you like! I don't care what it's called -«
    »So long as you do stay? Certainly not then. I call it, all the same,
immense fun,« Maria Gostrey declared; »and to see you work it out will be one of
the sensations of my life. It is clear you can toddle alone!«
    He received this tribute without elation. »I shan't be alone when the
Pococks have come.«
    Her eyebrows went up. »The Pococks are coming?«
    »That, I mean, is what will happen - and happen as quickly as possible - in
consequence of Chad's cable. They'll simply embark. Sarah will come to speak for
her mother - with an effect different from my muddle.«
    Miss Gostrey more gravely wondered. »She then will take him back?«
    »Very possibly - and we shall see. She must at any rate have the chance, and
she may be trusted to do all she can.«
    »And do you want that?«
    »Of course,« said Strether, »I want it. I want to play fair.«
    But she had lost for a moment the thread. »If it devolves on the Pococks why
do you stay?«
    »Just to see that I do play fair - and a little also, no doubt, that they
do.« Strether was luminous as he had never been. »I came out to find myself in
presence of new facts - facts that have kept striking me as less and less met by
our old reasons. The matter's perfectly simple. New reasons - reasons as new as
the facts themselves - are wanted; and of this our friends at Woollett - Chad's
and mine - were at the earliest moment definitely notified. If any are
producible Mrs
