Strether, responsively, wondered indeed. “Perhaps the girl herself doesn’t like him.”
“ Then why does he speak of them to you as he does?”
Strether’s mind echoed the question, but also again met it. “Perhaps it’s with the mother he’s on good terms.”
“ As against the daughter?”
“ Well, if she’s trying to persuade the daughter to consent to him, what could make him like the mother more? Only,” Strether threw out, “why shouldn’t the daughter consent to him?”
“ Oh,” said Miss Gostrey, “mayn’t it be that every one else isn’t quite so struck with him as you?”
“ Doesn’t regard him you mean as such an ‘eligible’ young man? Is that what I’ve come to?” he audibly and rather gravely sought to know. “However,” he went on, “his marriage is what his mother most desires—that is if
