"No, I can't pretend I think she's finished--or that it's for more than to-night." She remained pensive as if with the same compunction.

"It's only up to her chin." Then again for the fun of it: "She can breathe." "She can breathe!"-- he echoed it in the same spirit.

"And do you know," he went on, "what's really all this time happening to me ?--through the beauty of music, the gaiety of voices, the uproar in short of our revel and the felicity of your wit?
The sound of Mrs.
Pocock's respiration drowns for me, I assure you, every other.

It's literally all I hear." She focussed him with her clink of chains.

"Well--!" she breathed ever so kindly.
"Well, what ?" "She IS free from her chin up," she mused; "and that WILL be enough for her." "It will be enough for me!" Strether ruefully laughed.