"You're going to abandon me NOW ?" "No, I'm only going to abandon HER.

She'll want me to help her with you.

And I won't." "You'll only help me with her?
Well then--!" Most of the persons previously gathered had, in the interest of tea, passed into the house, and they had the gardens mainly to themselves.

The shadows were long, the last call of the birds, who had made a home of their own in the noble interspaced quarter, sounded from the high trees in the other gardens as well, those of the old convent and of the old hotels; it was as if our friends had waited for the full charm to come out.

Strether's impressions were still present; it was as if something had happened that "nailed" them, made them more intense; but he was to ask himself soon afterwards, that evening, what really HAD happened--conscious as he could after all remain that for a gentleman taken, and taken the first time, into the "great world," the world of ambassadors and duchesses, the items made a meagre total.