 she laughed. »The money you must be spending to think it
cheap! But I must be out of it - to the naked eye.«
    He looked for a moment as if she were really failing him. »Then you won't
meet them?« It was almost as if she had developed an unexpected personal
prudence.
    She hesitated. »Who are they - first?«
    »Why little Bilham to begin with.« He kept back for the moment Miss Barrace.
»And Chad - when he comes - you must absolutely see.«
    »When then does he come?«
    »When Bilham has had time to write him, and hear from him, about me. Bilham,
however,« he pursued, »will report favourably - favourably for Chad. That will
make him not afraid to come. I want you the more therefore, you see, for my
bluff.«
    »Oh you'll do yourself for your bluff.« She was perfectly easy. »At the rate
you've gone I'm quiet.«
    »Ah but I haven't,« said Strether, »made one protest.«
    She turned it over. »Haven't you been seeing what there's to protest about?«
    He let her, with this, however ruefully, have the whole truth. »I haven't
yet found a single thing.«
    »Isn't there any one with him then?«
    »Of the sort I came out about?« Strether took a moment. »How do I know? And
what do I care?«
    »Oh oh!« - and her laughter spread. He was struck in fact by the effect on
her of his joke. He saw now how he meant it as a joke. She saw, however, still
other things, though in an instant she had hidden them. »You've got at no facts
at all?«
    He tried to muster them. »Well, he has a lovely home.«
    »Ah that, in Paris,« she quickly returned, »proves nothing. That is rather
it disproves nothing. They may very well, you see, the people your mission is
concerned with, have done it for him.«
    »Exactly. And it was on the scene of their doings then that Waymarsh and I
sat guzzling.«
    »Oh if you forbore to guzzle here on scenes of doings,« she replied, »you
might easily die of starvation.« With which she smiled at him. »You've worse
before
