Bilham Timeline and Summary

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• Bilham is housesitting for Chad when Strether first shows up. He invites Strether to come back the next day for breakfast.
• When Strether returns, Bilham charms him with stories about his life as a cool artist. Bilham has used his youth to do what he loves, and this makes Strether super jealous. Even though that phrase "starving artist" isn't used for nothing.
• Bilham and Strether constantly fall into conversation with each other when they go to Chad's parties. It turns out that Bilham, despite his charm, is pretty shy with the ladies. But Strether warns him not to let fear get the best of him or he'll regret it when he's older.
• Strether presses Bilham for information about Chad's "relationship" with Madame de Vionnet. Bilham assures Strether that the relationship is "virtuous." Like everyone else, he never clarifies what he means by this.
• Strether tells Bilham that he should try to marry the young, beautiful, and rich Jeanne de Vionnet. Bilham says she's way out of his league and the subject pretty much dies there.
• Later in the book, Bilham strikes up a relationship with Mamie Pocock. Strether finds out and tells Bilham it's a good idea for the two of them to get married.
• Bilham is shocked, but he looks like he's definitely on board to take the advice.
• It doesn't take long for Bilham to leave Paris with Mamie on a trip to Switzerland. What happened to the "bleached bones" of Paris thing?
• Looks like things are going pretty well between them when they jet off Switz-ward. We'll just cross our fingers they end up happier than most of the other folks in this book.