And the relation profited by a mass of things that were not strictly in it or of it; by the very air in which they sat, by the high cold delicate room, by the world outside and the little plash in the court, by the First Empire and the relics in the stiff cabinets, by matters as far off as those and by others as near as the unbroken clasp of her hands in her lap and the look her expression had of being most natural when her eyes were most fixed.

"You count upon me of course for something really much greater than it sounds." "Oh it sounds great enough too!" she laughed at this.
He found himself in time on the point of telling her that she was, as Miss Barrace called it, wonderful; but, catching himself up, he said something else instead.

"What was it Chad's idea then that you should say to me ?" "Ah his idea was simply what a man's idea always is--to put every effort off on the woman." "The 'woman'-- ?" Strether slowly echoed.
"The woman he likes--and just in proportion as he likes her.

In proportion too--for shifting the trouble--as she likes HIM." Strether followed it; then with an abruptness of his own: "How much do you like Chad ?" "Just as much as THAT--to take all, with you, on myself." But she got at once again away from this.

"I've been trembling as if we were to stand or fall by what you may think of me; and I'm even now," she went on wonderfully, "drawing a long breath--and, yes, truly taking a great courage--from the hope that I don't in fact strike you as impossible." "That's at all events, clearly," he observed after an instant, "the way I don't strike YOU." "Well," she so far assented, "as you haven't yet said you WON'T have the little patience with me I ask for--" "You draw splendid conclusions?
Perfectly.