"And who takes it if he does ?" she enquired with a certain grimness of gaiety.
"Well," said Strether, "I think I take, in any event, everything." "By which I suppose you mean," his companion brought out after a moment, "that you definitely understand you now lose everything." He stood before her again.

"It does come perhaps to the same thing.
But Chad, now that he has seen, doesn't really want it." She could believe that, but she made, as always, for clearness.

"Still, what, after all, HAS he seen ?" "What they want of him.

And it's enough." "It contrasts so unfavourably with what Madame de Vionnet wants ?" "It contrasts--just so; all round, and tremendously." "Therefore, perhaps, most of all with what YOU want ?" "Oh," said Strether, "what I want is a thing I've ceased to measure or even to understand." But his friend none the less went on.

"Do you want Mrs.Newsome--after such a way of treating you ?" It was a straighter mode of dealing with this lady than they had as yet--such was their high form--permitted themselves; but it seemed not wholly for this that he delayed a moment.