Seated near him presently where little Bilham had sat, she replied in truth to many things; beginning as soon as he had said to her--what he hoped he said without fatuity--"All you ladies are extraordinarily kind to me." She played her long handle, which shifted her observation; she saw in an instant all the absences that left them free.

"How can we be anything else?
But isn't that exactly your plight?
'We ladies'-- oh we're nice, and you must be having enough of us! As one of us, you know, I don't pretend I'm crazy about us.

But Miss Gostrey at least to-night has left you alone, hasn't she ?" With which she again looked about as if Maria might still lurk.
"Oh yes," said Strether; "she's only sitting up for me at home." And then as this elicited from his companion her gay "Oh, oh, oh!" he explained that he meant sitting up in suspense and prayer.

"We thought it on the whole better she shouldn't be present; and either way of course it's a terrible worry for her." He abounded in the sense of his appeal to the ladies, and they might take their choice of his doing so from humility or from pride.

"Yet she inclines to believe I shall come out." "Oh I incline to believe too you'll come out!"-- Miss Barrace, with her laugh, was not to be behind.