much, you know,« Strether added, »in
general, in America, in pretty girls.«
    »No,« she conceded; »but I know also what you do sometimes miss. And do
you,« she asked, »yourself admire her?«
    It was a question, he indicated, that there might be several ways of taking;
but he decided after an instant for the humorous. »Haven't I sufficiently showed
you how I admire any pretty girl?«
    Her interest in his problem was by this time such that it scarce left her
freedom, and she kept close to the facts. »I supposed that at Woollett you
wanted them - what shall I call it? - blameless. I mean your young men for your
pretty girls.«
    »So did I!« Strether confessed. »But you strike there a curious fact - the
fact that Woollett too accommodates itself to the spirit of the age and the
increasing mildness of manners. Everything changes, and I hold that our
situation precisely marks a date. We should prefer them blameless, but we have
to make the best of them as we find them. Since the spirit of the age and the
increasing mildness send them so much more to Paris -«
    »You've to take them back as they come. When they do come. Bon!« Once more
she embraced it all, but she had a moment of thought. »Poor Chad!«
    »Ah,« said Strether cheerfully, »Mamie will save him!«
    She was looking away, still in her vision, and she spoke with impatience and
almost as if he hadn't understood her. »You'll save him. That's who'll save
him.«
    »Oh but with Mamie's aid. Unless indeed you mean,« he added, »that I shall
effect so much more with yours!«
    It made her at last again look at him. »You'll do more - as you're so much
better - than all of us put together.«
    »I think I'm only better since I've known you!« Strether bravely returned.
    The depletion of the place, the shrinkage of the crowd and now comparatively
quiet withdrawal of its last elements had already brought them nearer the door
and put them in relation with a messenger of whom he bespoke Miss Gostrey's cab.
But this left them a few minutes more, which she was clearly in no mood not to
use. »You've spoken to me of what - by your