 We must move you almost to
tears.«
    »Oh but I don't mean you!« she laughed.
    »You ought to then, for the worst sign of all - as I must have it for you -
is that you can't help me. That's when a woman pities.«
    »Ah but I do help you!« she cheerfully insisted.
    Again he looked at her hard, and then after a pause; »No you don't!«
    Her tortoise-shell, on its long chain, rattled down. »I help you with
Sitting Bull. That's a good deal.«
    »Oh that, yes.« But Strether hesitated. »Do you mean he talks of me?«
    »So that I have to defend you? No, never.«
    »I see,« Strether mused. »It's too deep.«
    »That's his only fault,« she returned - »that everything, with him, is too
deep. He has depths of silence - which he breaks only at the longest intervals
by a remark. And when the remark comes it's always something he has seen or felt
for himself - never a bit banal. That would be what one might have feared and
what would kill me. But never.« She smoked again as she thus, with amused
complacency, appreciated her acquisition. »And never about you. We keep clear of
you. We're wonderful. But I'll tell you what he does do,« she continued: »he
tries to make me presents.«
    »Presents?« poor Strether echoed, conscious with a pang that he hadn't yet
tried that in any quarter.
    »Why you see,« she explained, »he's as fine as ever in the victoria; so that
when I leave him, as I often do almost for hours - he likes it so - at the doors
of shops, the sight of him there helps me, when I come out, to know my carriage
away off in the rank. But sometimes, for a change, he goes with me into the
shops, and then I've all I can do to prevent his buying me things.«
    »He wants to treat you?« Strether almost gasped at all he himself hadn't
thought of. He had a sense of admiration. »Oh he's much more in the real
tradition than I. Yes,« he mused; »it's the sacred rage.«
    »The sacred
