“Of course not—wonderful as she is. Besides, he makes nothing of her. She won’t take him from me—though she wouldn’t, no doubt, having other affairs in hand, even if she could. I’ve never,” said Miss Barrace, “seen her fail with any one before. And to-night, when she’s so magnificent, it would seem to her strange—if she minded. So at any rate I have him all. Je suis tranquille!”
Strether understood, so far as that went; but he was feeling for his clue. “She strikes you to-night as particularly magnificent?”
“Surely. Almost as I’ve never seen her. Doesn’t she you? Why it’s for you.”
He persisted in his candour. “‘For’ me—?”
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Miss Barrace, who persisted in the opposite of that quality.
“Well,” he acutely admitted, “she is different. She’s gay.”
“She’s gay!” Miss Barrace laughed. “And she has beautiful shoulders—though there’s nothing different in that.”
“No,” said Strether, “one was sure of her shoulders. It isn’t her shoulders.”
His companion, with renewed mirth and the finest sense, between the puffs of her cigarette, of the drollery of things, appeared to find their conversation highly delightful. “Yes, it isn’t her shoulders.”
“What then is it?” Strether earnestly enquired.