 have to swallow. I want my conditions unmitigated.«
    He had spoken in the tone of talk for talk's sake, and yet with an obscure
truth lurking in the loose folds; a circumstance presently not without its
effect on his young friend. Little Bilham's eyes rested on him a moment with
some intensity; then suddenly, as if everything had cleared up, he gave a happy
laugh. It seemed to say that if pretending, or even trying, or still even
hoping, to be able to care for Mamie would be of use, he was all there for the
job. »I'll do anything in the world for you!«
    »Well,« Strether smiled, »anything in the world is all I want. I don't know
anything that pleased me in her more,« he went on, »than the way that, on my
finding her up there all alone, coming on her unawares and feeling greatly for
her being so out of it, she knocked down my tall house of cards with her instant
and cheerful allusion to the next young man. It was somehow so the note I needed
- her staying at home to receive him.«
    »It was Chad of course,« said little Bilham, »who asked the next young man -
I like your name for me! - to call.«
    »So I supposed - all of which, thank God, is in our innocent and natural
manners. But do you know,« Strether asked, »if Chad knows -?« And then as this
interlocutor seemed at a loss: »Why where she has come out.«
    Little Bilham, at this, met his face with a conscious look; it was as if,
more than anything yet, the allusion had penetrated. »Do you know yourself?«
    Strether lightly shook his head. »There I stop. Oh, odd as it may appear to
you, there are things I don't know. I only got the sense from her of something
very sharp, and yet very deep down, that she was keeping all to herself. That is
I had begun with the belief that she had kept it to herself; but face to face
with her there I soon made out that there was a person with whom she would have
shared it. I had thought she possibly might with me - but I saw then that I was
only half in her confidence. When, turning to me to greet me - for she was on
the balcony and I had come in without her knowing it - she showed
