"Oh you were a trophy--one of the spoils of conquest? But why in that case, since you do "compromise"--"
"Don"t I compromise HIM as well? I do compromise him as well," Miss Barrace smiled. "I compromise him as hard as I can. But for Mr.
Waymarsh it isn"t fatal. It"s--so far as his wonderful relation with Mrs. Poc.o.c.k is concerned--favourable." And then, as he still seemed slightly at sea: "The man who had succeeded with ME, don"t you see?
For her to get him from me was such an added incentive."
Strether saw, but as if his path was still strewn with surprises. "It"s "from" you then that she has got him?"
She was amused at his momentary muddle. "You can fancy my fight! She believes in her triumph. I think it has been part of her joy.
"Oh her joy!" Strether sceptically murmured.
"Well, she thinks she has had her own way. And what"s to-night for her but a kind of apotheosis? Her frock"s really good."
"Good enough to go to heaven in? For after a real apotheosis,"
Strether went on, "there"s nothing BUT heaven. For Sarah there"s only to-morrow."
"And you mean that she won"t find to-morrow heavenly?"
"Well, I mean that I somehow feel to-night--on her behalf--too good to be true. She has had her cake; that is she"s in the act now of having it, of swallowing the largest and sweetest piece. There won"t be another left for her. Certainly I haven"t one. It can only, at the best, be Chad." He continued to make it out as for their common entertainment. "He may have one, as it were, up his sleeve; yet it"s borne in upon me that if he had--"
"He wouldn"t"--she quite understood--"have taken all THIS trouble? I dare say not, and, if I may be quite free and dreadful, I very much hope he won"t take any more. Of course I won"t pretend now," she added, "not to know what it"s a question of."
"Oh every one must know now," poor Strether thoughtfully admitted; "and it"s strange enough and funny enough that one should feel everybody here at this very moment to be knowing and watching and waiting."
"Yes--isn"t it indeed funny?" Miss Barrace quite rose to it. "That"s the way we ARE in Paris." She was always pleased with a new contribution to that queerness. "It"s wonderful! But, you know," she declared, "it all depends on you. I don"t want to turn the knife in your vitals, but that"s naturally what you just now meant by our all being on top of you. We know you as the hero of the drama, and we"re gathered to see what you"ll do."
Strether looked at her a moment with a light perhaps slightly obscured.
"I think that must be why the hero has taken refuge in this corner.
He"s scared at his heroism--he shrinks from his part."
"Ah but we nevertheless believe he"ll play it. That"s why," Miss Barrace kindly went on, "we take such an interest in you. We feel you"ll come up to the scratch." And then as he seemed perhaps not quite to take fire: "Don"t let him do it."
"Don"t let Chad go?"
"Yes, keep hold of him. With all this"--and she indicated the general tribute--"he has done enough. We love him here--he"s charming."
"It"s beautiful," said Strether, "the way you all can simplify when you will."
But she gave it to him back. "It"s nothing to the way you will when you must."
He winced at it as at the very voice of prophecy, and it kept him a moment quiet. He detained her, however, on her appearing about to leave him alone in the rather cold clearance their talk had made.
"There positively isn"t a sign of a hero to-night; the hero"s dodging and shirking, the hero"s ashamed. Therefore, you know, I think, what you must all REALLY be occupied with is the heroine."
Miss Barrace took a minute. "The heroine?"
"The heroine. I"ve treated her," said Strether, "not a bit like a hero. Oh," he sighed, "I don"t do it well!"
She eased him off. "You do it as you can." And then after another hesitation: "I think she"s satisfied."
But he remained compunctious. "I haven"t been near her. I haven"t looked at her."
"Ah then you"ve lost a good deal!"
He showed he knew it. "She"s more wonderful than ever?"
"Than ever. With Mr. Poc.o.c.k."
Strether wondered. "Madame de Vionnet--with Jim?"
"Madame de Vionnet--with "Jim."" Miss Barrace was historic.
"And what"s she doing with him?"
"Ah you must ask HIM!"
Strether"s face lighted again at the prospect. "It WILL be amusing to do so." Yet he continued to wonder. "But she must have some idea."
"Of course she has--she has twenty ideas. She has in the first place,"
said Miss Barrace, swinging a little her tortoise-sh.e.l.l, "that of doing her part. Her part is to help YOU."
It came out as nothing had come yet; links were missing and connexions unnamed, but it was suddenly as if they were at the heart of their subject. "Yes; how much more she does it," Strether gravely reflected, "than I help HER!" It all came over him as with the near presence of the beauty, the grace, the intense, dissimulated spirit with which he had, as he said, been putting off contact. "SHE has courage."
"Ah she has courage!" Miss Barrace quite agreed; and it was as if for a moment they saw the quant.i.ty in each other"s face.
But indeed the whole thing was present. "How much she must care!"
"Ah there it is. She does care. But it isn"t, is it," Miss Barrace considerately added, "as if you had ever had any doubt of that?"
Strether seemed suddenly to like to feel that he really never had. "Why of course it"s the whole point."
"Voila!" Miss Barrace smiled.
"It"s why one came out," Strether went on. "And it"s why one has stayed so long. And it"s also"--he abounded--"why one"s going home.
It"s why, it"s why--"
"It"s why everything!" she concurred. "It"s why she might be to-night--for all she looks and shows, and for all your friend "Jim"
does--about twenty years old. That"s another of her ideas; to be for him, and to be quite easily and charmingly, as young as a little girl."
Strether a.s.sisted at his distance. ""For him"? For Chad--?"
"For Chad, in a manner, naturally, always. But in particular to-night for Mr. Poc.o.c.k." And then as her friend still stared: "Yes, it IS of a bravery But that"s what she has: her high sense of duty." It was more than sufficiently before them. "When Mr. Newsome has his hands so embarra.s.sed with his sister--"
"It"s quite the least"--Strether filled it out--"that she should take his sister"s husband? Certainly--quite the least. So she has taken him."
"She has taken him." It was all Miss Barrace had meant.
Still it remained enough. "It must be funny."