"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.