"What creature do you mean ?" It was on this that they did have for a little a mute interchange.

"Is it untrue that he's free?
How then," Strether asked wondering "does he arrange his life ?" "Is the creature you mean Chad himself ?" little Bilham said.
Strether here, with a rising hope, just thought, "We must take one of them at a time." But his coherence lapsed.

"IS there some woman?
Of whom he's really afraid of course I mean--or who does with him what she likes." "It's awfully charming of you," Bilham presently remarked, "not to have asked me that before." "Oh I'm not fit for my job!" The exclamation had escaped our friend, but it made little Bilham more deliberate.

"Chad's a rare case!" he luminously observed.

"He's awfully changed," he added.
"Then you see it too ?" "The way he has improved?
Oh yes--I think every one must see it.