Henry James

“ She's a tremendously clever, brilliant, capable woman, and with an extraordinary charm on top of it all—the charm we surely, all of us this evening, know what to think of. It isn't every clever, brilliant, capable woman that has it. In fact it's rare with any woman. So there you are," Strether proceeded as if not for little Bilham's benefit alone. ”

“ Strether could but laugh at that. It brought him back, however, to the point he had really wished to make. "They've accepted their situation—hard as it is. They're not free—at least she's not; but they take what's left to them. It's a friendship, of a beautiful sort, and that's what makes them so strong. They're straight, they feel, and they keep each other up. It's doubtless she, however, who, as you yourself have hinted, feels it most."
Little Bilham appeared to wonder what he had hinted. "Feels most that they're straight?" ”

“ Her head, extremely fair and exquisitely festal, was like a happy fancy, a notion of the antique, on an old, precious medal, some silver coin of the Renaissance; while her slim lightness and brightness, her gaiety, her expression, her decision, contributed to an effect that might have been felt by a poet as half mythological and half conventional. ”

“ They were seated together a minute later at the angle of the room obliquely opposite the corner in which Gloriani was still engaged with Jeanne de Vionnet, to whom, at first, and in silence, their attention had been benevolently given. "I can't see for my life," Strether had then observed, "how a young fellow of any spirit—such a one as you, for instance—can be admitted to the sight of that young lady without being hard hit. Why don't you go in, little Bilham?" ”

“ She's wonderful, wonderful, as Miss Barrace says; and he is, in his way, too; however, as a mere man, he may sometimes rebel and not feel that he finds his account in it. She has simply given him an immense moral lift, and what that can explain is prodigious. That's why I speak of it as a situation. It is one, if there ever was." And Strether, with his head back and his eyes on the ceiling, seemed to lose himself in the vision of it.
His companion attended deeply. "You state it much better than I could."
"Oh, you see, it doesn't concern you."
Little Bilham considered. ”

“ The young man just hesitated. "Not being able to marry is all they've with any confidence to look forward to. A woman—a particular woman—may stand that strain; but can a man?"
Strether's answer was as prompt as if he had already, for himself, worked it out "Not without a very high ideal of conduct. But that's just what we're attributing to Chad. ”

“ The curious fact remains that Chad himself isn't. The situation doesn't make for it, but in a different one he could have her if he would."
"Yes, but that's only because he's rich and because there's a possibility of his being richer. They won't think of anything but a great name or a great fortune."
"Well," said Strether, "he'll have no great fortune on these lines. He must stir his stumps."
"Is that," little Bilham inquired, "what you were saying to Mme. de Vionnet?"
"No—I don't say much to her. Of course, however," Strether continued, "he can make sacrifices if he likes." ”

“ Strether went on after a moment. But he had the next minute an inconsequent question. "How comes Chad so mixed up, anyway?"
"Ah, ah, ah!" and little Bilham fell back on his cushions.
It reminded our friend of Miss Barrace, and he felt again the brush of his sense of moving in a maze of mystic, closed allusions. Yet he kept hold of his thread. "Of course I understand really; only the general transformation makes me occasionally gasp. Chad with such a voice in the settlement of the future of a little countess—no," he declared, "it takes more time! ”

“ "When it's for each other that people give things up they don't miss them." ”