Strether took this in as they slowly moved to the house on their way out. “She counts on me then to put the thing through?”
“Yes—she counts on you. Oh and first of all of course,” Miss Gostrey added, “on her—well, convincing you.”
“Ah,” her friend returned, “she caught Chad young!”
“Yes, but there are women who are for all your ‘times of life.’ They’re the most wonderful sort.”
She had laughed the words out, but they brought her companion, the next thing, to a stand. “Is what you mean that she’ll try to make a fool of me?”
“Well, I’m wondering what she will—with an opportunity—make.”
“What do you call,” Strether asked, “an opportunity? My going to see her?”
“Ah you must go to see her”—Miss Gostrey was a trifle evasive. “You can’t not do that. You’d have gone to see the other woman. I mean if there had been one—a different sort. It’s what you came out for.”
It might be; but Strether distinguished. “I didn’t come out to see this sort.”
She had a wonderful look at him now. “Are you disappointed she isn’t worse?”