“Might have known you don’t?” Miss Gostrey asked as he let it drop. “She was sure of it at first,” she pursued as he said nothing; “she took it for granted, at least, as any woman in her position would. But after that she changed her mind; she believed you believed—”
“Well?”—he was curious.
“Why in her sublimity. And that belief had remained with her, I make out, till the accident of the other day opened your eyes. For that it did,” said Maria, “open them—”
“She can’t help”—he had taken it up—“being aware? No,” he mused; “I suppose she thinks of that even yet.”
“Then they were closed? There you are! However, if you see her as the most charming woman in the world it comes to the same thing. And if you’d like me to tell her that you do still so see her—!” Miss Gostrey, in short, offered herself for service to the end.
It was an offer he could temporarily entertain; but he decided. “She knows perfectly how I see her.”
“Not favourably enough, she mentioned to me, to wish ever to see her again. She told me you had taken a final leave of her. She says you’ve done with her.”
“So I have.”
Maria had a pause; then she spoke as if for conscience. “She wouldn’t have done with you. She feels she has lost you—yet that she might have been better for you.”
“Oh she has been quite good enough!” Strether laughed.