Miss Gostrey, already knowing, instantly made the connexion. “He has seen Marie de Vionnet again?”
“He went, all by himself, the day after Chad’s party—didn’t I tell you?—to tea with her. By her invitation—all alone.”
“Quite like yourself!” Maria smiled.
“Oh but he’s more wonderful about her than I am!” And then as his friend showed how she could believe it, filling it out, fitting it on to old memories of the wonderful woman: “What I should have liked to manage would have been her going.”
“To Switzerland with the party?”
“For Jim—and for symmetry. If it had been workable moreover for a fortnight she’d have gone. She’s ready”—he followed up his renewed vision of her—“for anything.”
Miss Gostrey went with him a minute. “She’s too perfect!”
“She will, I think,” he pursued, “go to-night to the station.”
“To see him off?”
“With Chad—marvellously—as part of their general attention. And she does it”—it kept before him—“with a light, light grace, a free, free gaiety, that may well softly bewilder Mr. Pocock.”