She wondered. “Get hold of him?”
“No—just the other thing. Counteract Sarah’s spell.” And he showed now, our friend, how far he had worked it out. “Jim’s intensely cynical.”
“Oh dear Jim!” Madame de Vionnet vaguely smiled.
“Yes, literally—dear Jim! He’s awful. What he wants, heaven forgive him, is to help us.”
“You mean”—she was eager—“help me?”
“Well, Chad and me in the first place. But he throws you in too, though without as yet seeing you much. Only, so far as he does see you—if you don’t mind—he sees you as awful.”
“‘Awful’?”—she wanted it all.
“A regular bad one—though of course of a tremendously superior kind. Dreadful, delightful, irresistible.”
“Ah dear Jim! I should like to know him. I must.”
“Yes, naturally. But will it do? You may, you know,” Strether suggested, “disappoint him.”