“Ah,” Strether returned, “that I’m not obliged to say. But Madame de Vionnet—I suggest—when he can.’
“Oh!” said little Bilham with some sharpness.
“Oh precisely! But he needn’t marry at all—I’m at any rate not obliged to provide for it. Whereas in your case I rather feel that I am.”
Little Bilham was amused. “Obliged to provide for my marrying?”
“Yes—after all I’ve done to you!”
The young man weighed it. “Have you done as much as that?”
“Well,” said Strether, thus challenged, “of course I must remember what you’ve also done to me. We may perhaps call it square. But all the same,” he went on, “I wish awfully you’d marry Mamie Pocock yourself.”
Little Bilham laughed out. “Why it was only the other night, in this very place, that you were proposing to me a different union altogether.”
“Mademoiselle de Vionnet?” Well, Strether easily confessed it. “That, I admit, was a vain image. This is practical politics. I want to do something good for both of you—I wish you each so well; and you can see in a moment the trouble it will save me to polish you off by the same stroke. She likes you, you know. You console her. And she’s splendid.”
Little Bilham stared as a delicate appetite stares at an overheaped plate. “What do I console her for?”