"Ah don't talk about payment!" he groaned.

Something in the tone of it pulled her up, but as their messenger
still delayed she had another chance and she put it in another
way. "What--by failure--do you stand to lose?"

He still, however, wouldn't have it. "Nothing!" he exclaimed, and
on the messenger's at this instant reappearing he was able to sink
the subject in their responsive advance. When, a few steps up the
street, under a lamp, he had put her into her four-wheeler and she
had asked him if the man had called for him no second conveyance,
he replied before the door was closed. "You won't take me with
you?"

"Not for the world."

"Then I shall walk."

"In the rain?"

"I like the rain," said Strether. "Good-night!"

She kept him a moment, while his hand was on the door, by not
answering; after which she answered by repeating her question.
"What do you stand to lose?"

Why the question now affected him as other he couldn't have said;
he could only this time meet it otherwise. "Everything."