. A question came up as soon as they had spoken, for his
answer, with a laugh, was quickly: »Well, they've got hold of me!« Much of their
talk on this first occasion was his development of that truth. He was
extraordinarily glad to see her, expressing to her frankly what she most showed
him, that one might live for years without a blessing unsuspected, but that to
know it at last for no more than three days was to need it or miss it for ever.
She was the blessing that had now become his need, and what could prove it
better than that without her he had lost himself?
    »What do you mean?« she asked with an absence of alarm that, correcting him
as if he had mistaken the period of one of her pieces, gave him afresh a sense
of her easy movement through the maze he had but begun to tread. »What in the
name of all the Pococks have you managed to do?«
    »Why exactly the wrong thing. I've made a frantic friend of little Bilham.«
    »Ah that sort of thing was of the essence of your case and to have been
allowed for from the first.« And it was only after this that, quite as a minor
matter, she asked who in the world little Bilham might be. When she learned that
he was a friend of Chad's and living for the time in Chad's rooms in Chad's
absence, quite as if acting in Chad's spirit and serving Chad's cause, she
showed, however, more interest. »Should you mind my seeing him? Only once, you
know,« she added.
    »Oh the oftener the better: he's amusing - he's original.«
    »He doesn't shock you?« Miss Gostrey threw out.
    »Never in the world! We escape that with a perfection -! I feel it to be
largely, no doubt, because I don't half - understand him; but our modus vivendi
isn't spoiled even by that. You must dine with me to meet him,« Strether went
on. »Then you'll see.«
    »Are you giving dinners?«
    »Yes - there I am. That's what I mean.«
    All her kindness wondered. »That you're spending too much money?«
    »Dear no - they seem to cost so little. But that I do it to them. I ought to
hold off.«
    She thought again -
