The Ambassadors Henry James (novel24 txt) 📖

the money from it, and the money’s his whole basis. There’s appreciation in that⁠—I mean as to the allowance his mother has hitherto made him. She has of course the resource of cutting this allowance off; but even then he has unfortunately, and on no small scale, his independent supply⁠—money left him by his grandfather, her own father.”

“Wouldn’t the fact you mention then,” Miss Gostrey asked, “make it just more easy for him to be particular? Isn’t he conceivable as fastidious about the source⁠—the apparent and public source⁠—of his income?”

Strether was able quite good-humouredly to entertain the proposition. “The source of his grandfather’s wealth⁠—and thereby of his own share in it⁠—was not particularly noble.”

“And what source was it?”

Strether cast about. “Well⁠—practices.”

“In business? Infamies? He was an old swindler?”

“Oh,” he said with more emphasis than spirit, “I shan’t describe him nor narrate his exploits.”

“Lord, what abysses! And the late Mr. Newsome then?”

“Well, what about him?”

“Was he like the grandfather?”

“No⁠—he was on the other side of the house. And he was different.”

Miss Gostrey kept it up. “Better?”

Her friend for a moment hung fire. “No.”

Her comment on his hesitation was scarce the less marked for being mute. “Thank you. Now don’t you see,” she went on, “why the boy doesn’t come home? He’s drowning his shame.”

“His shame? What shame?”

“What shame? Comment donc? The shame.”

“But where and when,” Strether asked, “is ‘the shame’⁠—where is any shame⁠—today? The men I speak of⁠—they did as everyone does; and (besides being ancient history) it was all a matter of appreciation.”

She showed how she understood. “Mrs. Newsome has appreciated?”

“Ah I can’t speak for her!”

“In the midst of such doings⁠—and, as I understand you, profiting by them, she at least has remained exquisite?”

“Oh I can’t talk of her!” Strether said.

“I thought she was just what you could talk of. You don’t trust me,” Miss Gostrey after a moment declared.

It had its effect. “Well, her money is spent, her life conceived and carried on with a large beneficence⁠—”

“That’s a kind of expiation of wrongs? Gracious,” she added before he could speak, “how intensely you make me see her!”

“If you see her,” Strether dropped, “it’s all that’s necessary.”

She really seemed to have her. “I feel that. She is, in spite of everything, handsome.”

This at least enlivened him. “What do you mean by everything?”

“Well, I mean you.” With which she had one of her swift changes of ground. “You say the concern needs looking after; but doesn’t Mrs. Newsome look after it?”

“So far as possible. She’s wonderfully able, but it’s not her affair, and her life’s a good deal overcharged. She has many, many things.”

“And you also?”

“Oh yes⁠—I’ve many too, if you will.”

“I see. But what I mean is,” Miss Gostrey amended, “do you also look after the business?”

“Oh no, I don’t touch the business.”

“Only everything else?”

“Well, yes⁠—some things.”

“As for instance⁠—?”

Strether obligingly thought. “Well, the Review.”

“The Review?⁠—you have a Review?”

“Certainly. Woollett has a Review⁠—which Mrs. Newsome, for the most part, magnificently pays for and which I, not at all magnificently, edit. My name’s on the cover,” Strether pursued, “and I’m really rather disappointed and hurt that you seem never to have heard of it.”

She neglected for a moment this grievance. “And what kind of a Review is it?”

His serenity was now completely restored. “Well, it’s green.”

“Do you mean in political colour as they say here⁠—in thought?”

“No; I mean the cover’s green⁠—of the most lovely shade.”

“And with Mrs. Newsome’s name on it too?”

He waited a little. “Oh as for that you must judge if she peeps out. She’s behind the whole thing; but she’s of a delicacy and a discretion⁠—!”

Miss Gostrey took it all. “I’m sure. She would be. I don’t underrate her. She must be rather a swell.”

“Oh yes, she’s rather a swell!”

“A Woollett swell⁠—bon! I like the idea of a Woollett swell. And you must be rather one too, to be so mixed up with her.”

“Ah no,” said Strether, “that’s not the way it works.”

But she had already taken him up. “The way it works⁠—you needn’t tell me!⁠—is of course that you efface yourself.”

“With my name on the cover?” he lucidly objected.

“Ah but you don’t put it on for yourself.”

“I beg your pardon⁠—that’s exactly what I do put it on for. It’s exactly the thing that I’m reduced to doing for myself. It seems to rescue a little, you see, from the wreck of hopes and ambitions, the refuse-heap of disappointments and failures, my one presentable little scrap of an identity.”

On this she looked at him as to say many things, but what she at last simply said was: “She likes to see it there. You’re the bigger swell of the two,” she immediately continued, “because you think you’re not one. She thinks she is one. However,” Miss Gostrey added, “she thinks you’re one too. You’re at all events the biggest she can get hold of.” She embroidered, she abounded. “I don’t say it to interfere between you, but on the day she gets hold of a bigger one⁠—!” Strether had thrown back his head as in silent mirth over something that struck him in her audacity or felicity, and her flight meanwhile was already higher. “Therefore close with her⁠—!”

“Close with her?” he asked as she seemed to hang poised.

“Before you lose your chance.”

Their eyes met over it. “What do you mean by closing?”

“And what do I mean by your chance? I’ll tell you when you tell me all the things you don’t. Is it her greatest fad?” she briskly pursued.

“The Review?” He seemed to wonder how he could best describe it. This resulted however but in a sketch. “It’s her tribute to the ideal.”

“I see. You go in for tremendous things.”

“We go in for the unpopular side⁠—that is so far as we dare.”

“And how far do you dare?”

“Well, she very far. I much less. I don’t begin to have her faith. She provides,” said Strether, “three fourths of that. And she provides, as I’ve confided to you, all the money.”

It evoked somehow a vision of gold that held for a little