“No; I mean the cover’s green—of the most lovely shade.”
“And with Mrs. Newsome’s name on it too?”
He waited a little. “Oh as for that you must judge if she peeps out. She’s behind the whole thing; but she’s of a delicacy and a discretion—!”
Miss Gostrey took it all. “I’m sure. She would be. I don’t underrate her. She must be rather a swell.”
“Oh yes, she’s rather a swell!”
“A Woollett swell—bon! I like the idea of a Woollett swell. And you must be rather one too, to be so mixed up with her.”
“Ah no,” said Strether, “that’s not the way it works.”
But she had already taken him up. “The way it works—you needn’t tell me!—is of course that you efface yourself.”
“With my name on the cover?” he lucidly objected.
“Ah but you don’t put it on for yourself.”