You're wonderful, you people," she continued to Strether, "for not feeling those things--by which I mean impossibilities.

You never feel them.

You face them with a fortitude that makes it a lesson to watch you." "Ah but"-- little Bilham put it with discouragement--"what do we achieve after all?
We see about you and report--when we even go so far as reporting.

But nothing's done." "Oh you, Mr.Bilham," she replied as with an impatient rap on the glass, "you're not worth sixpence! You come over to convert the savages--for I know you verily did, I remember you--and the savages simply convert YOU." "Not even!" the young man woefully confessed: "they haven't gone through that form.

They've simply--the cannibals!--eaten me; converted me if you like, but converted me into food.