young friend in Paris like you?"

It had almost, after the interval, startled him. "Oh I hope not!
Why SHOULD he?"

"Why shouldn't he?" Miss Gostrey asked. "That you're coming down on
him need have nothing to do with it."

"You see more in it," he presently returned, "than I."

"Of course I see you in it."

"Well then you see more in 'me'!"

"Than you see in yourself? Very likely. That's always one's right.
What I was thinking of," she explained, "is the possible particular
effect on him of his milieu."

"Oh his milieu--!" Strether really felt he could imagine it better
now than three hours before.

"Do you mean it can only have been so lowering?"

"Why that's my very starting-point."

"Yes, but you start so far back. What do his letters say?"

"Nothing. He practically ignores us--or spares us. He doesn't
write."