"Still, if the worst fault of his condition is that it may be all there for her to profit by-- ?" "Oh she doesn't want to 'profit,' in that flat way.

She doesn't want to profit by another woman's work--she wants the miracle to have been her own miracle.

THAT'S what she's too late for." Strether quite felt how it all fitted, yet there seemed one loose piece.

"I'm bound to say, you know, that she strikes one, on these lines, as fastidious--what you call here difficile." Little Bilham tossed up his chin.

"Of course she's difficile--on any lines! What else in the world ARE our Mamies--the real, the right ones ?" "I see, I see," our friend repeated, charmed by the responsive wisdom he had ended by so richly extracting.