There was but one little chance for her.
Often as she had said it he met it--for it was a touch he liked--each time the same way.

"My coming to grief ?" "Yes--then I might patch you up." "Oh for my real smash, if it takes place, there will be no patching." "But you surely don't mean it will kill you." "No--worse.

It will make me old." "Ah nothing can do that! The wonderful and special thing about you is that you ARE, at this time of day, youth." Then she always made, further, one of those remarks that she had completely ceased to adorn with hesitations or apologies, and that had, by the same token, in spite of their extreme straightness, ceased to produce in Strether the least embarrassment.

She made him believe them, and they became thereby as impersonal as truth itself.

"It's just your particular charm." His answer too was always the same.