He quite took in, however, that she would really return her visitor's civility: she wouldn't report again at Woollett without at least so much producible history as that in her pocket.
"I want extremely to be able to show you my little daughter." Madame de Vionnet went on; "and I should have brought her with me if I hadn't wished first to ask your leave.

I was in hopes I should perhaps find Miss Pocock, of whose being with you I've heard from Mr.Newsome and whose acquaintance I should so much like my child to make.

If I have the pleasure of seeing her and you do permit it I shall venture to ask her to be kind to Jeanne.

Mr.Strether will tell you"-- she beautifully kept it up--"that my poor girl is gentle and good and rather lonely.
They've made friends, he and she, ever so happily, and he doesn't, I believe, think ill of her.

As for Jeanne herself he has had the same success with her that I know he has had here wherever he has turned." She seemed to ask him for permission to say these things, or seemed rather to take it, softly and happily, with the ease of intimacy, for granted, and he had quite the consciousness now that not to meet her at any point more than halfway would be odiously, basely to abandon her.
Yes, he was WITH her, and, opposed even in this covert, this semi-safe fashion to those who were not, he felt, strangely and confusedly, but excitedly, inspiringly, how much and how far.