“That’s exactly,” the young man dropped after a moment, “what I mean.”
It kept Strether himself silent a little. “I’ve made it out for myself,” he then went on; “I’ve really, within the last half-hour, got hold of it. I understand it in short at last; which at first—when you originally spoke to me—I didn’t. Nor when Chad originally spoke to me either.”
“Oh,” said little Bilham, “I don’t think that at that time you believed me.”
“Yes—I did; and I believed Chad too. It would have been odious and unmannerly—as well as quite perverse—if I hadn’t. What interest have you in deceiving me?”
The young man cast about. “What interest have I?”
“Yes. Chad might have. But you?”
“Ah, ah, ah!” little Bilham exclaimed.
It might, on repetition, as a mystification, have irritated our friend a little, but he knew, once more, as we have seen, where he was, and his being proof against everything was only another attestation that he meant to stay there. “I couldn’t, without my own impression, realise. She’s a tremendously clever brilliant capable woman, and with an extraordinary charm on top of it all—the charm we surely all of us this evening know what to think of. It isn’t every clever brilliant capable woman that has it. In fact it’s rare with any woman. So there you are,” Strether proceeded as if not for little Bilham’s benefit alone. “I understand what a relation with such a woman—what such a high fine friendship—may be. It can’t be vulgar or coarse, anyway—and that’s the point.”
“Yes, that’s the point,” said little Bilham. “It can’t be vulgar or coarse. And, bless us and save us, it isn’t! It’s, upon my word, the very finest thing I ever saw in my life, and the most distinguished.”
Strether, from beside him and leaning back with him as he leaned, dropped on him a momentary look which filled a short interval and of which he took no notice. He only gazed before him with intent participation. “Of course what it has done for him,” Strether at all events presently pursued, “of course what it has done for him—that is as to how it has so wonderfully worked—isn’t a thing I pretend to understand. I’ve to take it as I find it. There he is.”