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He knew abruptly that he was afraid of himself and yet not in relation to the effect on his sensibilities of another hour of Madame de Vionnet. What he dreaded was the effect of a single hour of Sarah Pocock, as to whom he was visited, in troubled nights, with fantastic waking dreams.
There was however a touch of relief for him in his glimpse, so far as he had got it, of Sarah's line. She "knew Paris." Madame de Vionnet had, for that matter, lightly taken this up. "Ah then you've a turn for that, an affinity that belongs to your family. Your brother, though his long experience makes a difference, I admit, has become one of us in a marvellous way."
He hadn't come the day before, because it had been arranged between them that Madame de Vionnet should see their friend first; but now that this passage had taken place he would present himself, and their friend wouldn't have long to wait.
He wants what Jim can give him and what Jim really won't though he has had it all, and more than all, from me. He wants in short his own personal impression, and he'll get it strong. But as soon as he has got it Mamie won't suffer." "Oh Mamie mustn't SUFFER!" Madame de Vionnet soothingly emphasised. But Strether could reassure her. "Don't fear. As soon as he has done with Jim, Jim will fall to me.
But he only continued in his massive way. "I can post you about the lady, Mrs. Pocock, so far as you may care to hear. I've seen her quite a number of times, and I was practically present when they made acquaintance. I've kept my eye on her right along, but I don't know as there's any real harm in her." "'Harm'?" Madame de Vionnet quickly echoed.
How could he wish it to be lucid for others, for any one, that he, for the hour, saw reasons enough in the mere way the bright clean ordered water-side life came in at the open window? the mere way Madame de Vionnet, opposite him over their intensely white table-linen, their omelette aux tomates, their bottle of straw-coloured Chablis, thanked him for everything almost with the smile of a child, while her grey eyes moved in and out of their talk, back to the quarter of the warm spring air, in which early summer had already begun to throb, and then back again to his face and their human questions.
Twenty-three years put them both on, no doubt; and Madame de Vionnet though she had married straight after school couldn't be today an hour less than thirty-eight. This made her ten years older than Chad though ten years, also, if Strether liked, older than she looked; the least, at any rate, that a prospective mother-in-law could be expected to do with.
"Dear old Paris then!" Strether resignedly sighed while for a moment they looked at each other. Then he broke out: "Does Madame de Vionnet do that? I mean really show for what she is?" Her answer was prompt. "She's charming. She's perfect." "Then why did you a minute ago say 'Oh, oh, oh! at her name?" She easily remembered. "Why just because ! She's wonderful." "Ah she too?"
She raised and dropped her linked hands. "It doesn't matter. If I trust you why can't you a little trust me too? And why can't you also," she asked in another tone, "trust yourself?" But she gave him no time to reply. "Oh I shall be so easy for you! And I'm glad at any rate you've seen my child." "I'm glad too," he said; "but she does you no good." "No good?" Madame de Vionnet had a clear stare.
Chad had quickly understood this understanding; which formed on the part of each as near an approach as they had yet made to naming Madame de Vionnet. The limitations of their distinctness didn't, however, prevent its fairly lingering in the air that it was this lady Mrs. Pocock hated.
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