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diff --git a/old/30059-h/30059-h.htm b/old/30059-h/30059-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..157b9e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30059-h/30059-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14425 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wings of The Dove, by Henry James</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } +</STYLE> + +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Wings of the Dove, Volume II, by Henry James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Wings of the Dove, Volume II + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: September 22, 2009 [EBook #30059] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINGS OF THE DOVE, VOLUME II *** + + + + +Produced by James Adcock. Special thanks to The Internet +Archive: American Libraries, and Project Gutenberg Australia + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1 align="center">THE WINGS OF THE DOVE</h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3 align="center">BY</h3> +<h2 align="center">HENRY JAMES</h2> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3 align="center">VOLUME II</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3 align="center">NEW YORK</h3> +<h2 align="center">CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h2> + +<h3 align="center">1909</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5 align="center">Copyright, 1902 and 1909 by Charles Scribner's Sons</h5> +<br><br> +<br><br> +<br><br> + + +<br><br> +<br><br> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">BOOK SIXTH</h2> +<br><br> +<br><br> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">THE WINGS OF THE DOVE</h2> +<br> +<br> +<h2 align="center">I</h2> +<br> +<br> +<p> +"I say, you know, Kate—you <i>did</i> stay!" had been +Merton Densher's punctual remark on their adventure +after they had, as it were, got out of it; an observation +which she not less promptly, on her side, let +him see that she forgave in him only because he was a +man. She had to recognise, with whatever disappointment, +that it was doubtless the most helpful he could +make in this character. The fact of the adventure +was flagrant between them; they had looked at each +other, on gaining the street, as people look who have +just rounded together a dangerous corner, and there +was therefore already enough unanimity sketched out +to have lighted, for her companion, anything equivocal +in her action. But the amount of light men <i>did</i> +need!—Kate could have been eloquent at this moment +about that. What, however, on his seeing more, +struck him as most distinct in her was her sense that, +reunited after his absence and having been now half +the morning together, it behooved them to face without +delay the question of handling their immediate +future. That it would require some handling, that +they should still have to deal, deal in a crafty manner, +with difficulties and delays, was the great matter he +had come back to, greater than any but the refreshed +consciousness of their personal need of each other. +This need had had twenty minutes, the afternoon +before, to find out where it stood, and the time was +fully accounted for by the charm of the demonstration. +He had arrived at Euston at five, having wired +her from Liverpool the moment he landed, and she +had quickly decided to meet him at the station, whatever +publicity might attend such an act. When he had +praised her for it on alighting from his train she had +answered frankly enough that such things should be +taken at a jump. She didn't care to-day who saw her, +and she profited by it for her joy. To-morrow, inevitably, +she should have time to think and then, as inevitably, +would become a baser creature, a creature of +alarms and precautions. It was none the less for to-morrow +at an early hour that she had appointed their +next meeting, keeping in mind for the present a particular +obligation to show at Lancaster Gate by six +o'clock. She had given, with imprecations, her reason—people +to tea, eternally, and a promise to Aunt +Maud; but she had been liberal enough on the spot +and had suggested the National Gallery for the morning +quite as with an idea that had ripened in expectancy. +They might be seen there too, but nobody +would know them; just as, for that matter, now, in +the refreshment-room to which they had adjourned, +they would incur the notice but, at the worst, of the +unacquainted. They would "have something" there +for the facility it would give. Thus had it already +come up for them again that they had no place of convenience. +</p> +<p> +He found himself on English soil with all sorts of +feelings, but he hadn't quite faced having to reckon +with a certain ruefulness in regard to that subject as +one of the strongest. He was aware later on that there +were questions his impatience had shirked; whereby +it actually rather smote him, for want of preparation +and assurance, that he had nowhere to "take" his +love. He had taken it thus, at Euston—and on +Kate's own suggestion—into the place where people +had beer and buns, and had ordered tea at a small +table in the corner; which, no doubt, as they were +lost in the crowd, did well enough for a stop-gap. It +perhaps did as well as her simply driving with him +to the door of his lodging, which had had to figure as +the sole device of his own wit. That wit, the truth +was, had broken down a little at the sharp prevision +that once at his door they would have to hang back. +She would have to stop there, wouldn't come in with +him, couldn't possibly; and he shouldn't be able to +ask her, would feel he couldn't without betraying a +deficiency of what would be called, even at their advanced +stage, respect for her: that again was all that +was clear except the further fact that it was maddening. +Compressed and concentrated, confined to a +single sharp pang or two, but none the less in wait for +him there on the Euston platform and lifting its head +as that of a snake in the garden, was the disconcerting +sense that "respect," in their game, seemed somehow—he +scarce knew what to call it—a fifth wheel to +the coach. It was properly an inside thing, not an +outside, a thing to make love greater, not to make +happiness less. They had met again for happiness, +and he distinctly felt, during his most lucid moment +or two, how he must keep watch on anything that +really menaced that boon. If Kate had consented to +drive away with him and alight at his house there +would probably enough have occurred for them, at +the foot of his steps, one of those strange instants between +man and woman that blow upon the red spark, +the spark of conflict, ever latent in the depths of passion. +She would have shaken her head—oh sadly, +divinely—on the question of coming in; and he, +though doing all justice to her refusal, would have yet +felt his eyes reach further into her own than a possible +word at such a time could reach. This would have +meant the suspicion, the dread of the shadow, of an +adverse will. Lucky therefore in the actual case that +the scant minutes took another turn and that by the +half-hour she did in spite of everything contrive to +spend with him Kate showed so well how she could +deal with things that maddened. She seemed to ask +him, to beseech him, and all for his better comfort, to +leave her, now and henceforth, to treat them in her +own way. +</p><p> +She had still met it in naming so promptly, for their +early convenience, one of the great museums; and +indeed with such happy art that his fully seeing where +she had placed him hadn't been till after he left her. +His absence from her for so many weeks had had such +an effect upon him that his demands, his desires had +grown; and only the night before, as his ship steamed, +beneath summer stars, in sight of the Irish coast, he +had felt all the force of his particular necessity. He +hadn't in other words at any point doubted he was +on his way to say to her that really their mistake must +end. Their mistake was to have believed that they +<i>could hold out</i>—hold out, that is, not against Aunt +Maud, but against an impatience that, prolonged and +exasperated, made a man ill. He had known more +than ever, on their separating in the court of the station, +how ill a man, and even a woman, could feel +from such a cause; but he struck himself as also knowing +that he had already suffered Kate to begin finely +to apply antidotes and remedies and subtle sedatives. +It had a vulgar sound—as throughout, in love, the +names of things, the verbal terms of intercourse, were, +compared with love itself, horribly vulgar; but it was +as if, after all, he might have come back to find himself +"put off," though it would take him of course a +day or two to see. His letters from the States had +pleased whom it concerned, though not so much as he +had meant they should; and he should be paid according +to agreement and would now take up his money. +It wasn't in truth very much to take up, so that he +hadn't in the least come back flourishing a cheque-book; +that new motive for bringing his mistress to +terms he couldn't therefore pretend to produce. The +ideal certainty would have been to be able to present +a change of prospect as a warrant for the change of +philosophy, and without it he should have to make +shift but with the pretext of the lapse of time. The +lapse of time—not so many weeks after all, she might +always of course say—couldn't at any rate have +failed to do something for him; and that consideration +it was that had just now tided him over, all the more +that he had his vision of what it had done personally +for Kate. This had come out for him with a splendour +that almost scared him even in their small corner +of the room at Euston—almost scared him because +it just seemed to blaze at him that waiting was +the game of dupes. Not yet had she been so the creature +he had originally seen; not yet had he felt so +soundly safely sure. It was all there for him, playing +on his pride of possession as a hidden master in a +great dim church might play on the grandest organ. +His final sense was that a woman couldn't be like +that and then ask of one the impossible. +</p><p> +She had been like that afresh on the morrow; and +so for the hour they had been able to float in the mere +joy of contact—such contact as their situation in +pictured public halls permitted. This poor makeshift +for closeness confessed itself in truth, by twenty +small signs of unrest even on Kate's part, inadequate; +so little could a decent interest in the interesting place +presume to remind them of its claims. They had met +there in order not to meet in the streets and not again, +with an equal want of invention and of style, at a +railway-station; not again, either, in Kensington +Gardens, which, they could easily and tacitly agree, +would have had too much of the taste of their old +frustrations. The present taste, the taste that morning +in the pictured halls, had been a variation; yet +Densher had at the end of a quarter of an hour fully +known what to conclude from it. This fairly consoled +him for their awkwardness, as if he had been +watching it affect her. She might be as nobly charming +as she liked, and he had seen nothing to touch her +in the States; she couldn't pretend that in such conditions +as those she herself <i>believed</i> it enough to appease him. +She couldn't pretend she believed he +would believe it enough to render her a like service. +It wasn't enough for that purpose—she as good as +showed him it wasn't. That was what he could be +glad, by demonstration, to have brought her to. He +would have said to her had he put it crudely and on +the spot: "<i>Now</i> am I to understand you that you consider +this sort of thing can go on?" It would have +been open to her, no doubt, to reply that to have him +with her again, to have him all kept and treasured, so +still, under her grasping hand, as she had held him in +their yearning interval, was a sort of thing that he +must allow her to have no quarrel about; but that +would be a mere gesture of her grace, a mere sport +of her subtlety. She knew as well as he what they +wanted; in spite of which indeed he scarce could have +said how beautifully he mightn't once more have +named it and urged it if she hadn't, at a given moment, +blurred, as it were, the accord. They had soon +seated themselves for better talk, and so they had remained +a while, intimate and superficial. The immediate +things to say had been many, for they hadn't +exhausted them at Euston. They drew upon them +freely now, and Kate appeared quite to forget—which +was prodigiously becoming to her—to look +about for surprises. He was to try afterwards, and +try in vain, to remember what speech or what silence +of his own, what natural sign of the eyes or accidental +touch of the hand, had precipitated for her, in the +midst of this, a sudden different impulse. She had +got up, with inconsequence, as if to break the charm, +though he wasn't aware of what he had done at the +moment to make the charm a danger. She had +patched it up agreeably enough the next minute by +some odd remark about some picture, to which he +hadn't so much as replied; it being quite independently +of this that he had himself exclaimed on the +dreadful closeness of the rooms. He had observed +that they must go out again to breathe; and it was as +if their common consciousness, while they passed +into another part, was that of persons who, infinitely +engaged together, had been startled and were trying +to look natural. It was probably while they were so +occupied—as the young man subsequently reconceived—that +they had stumbled upon his little New +York friend. He thought of her for some reason as +little, though she was of about Kate's height, to which, +any more than to any other felicity in his mistress, he +had never applied the diminutive. +</p><p> +What was to be in the retrospect more distinct to +him was the process by which he had become aware +that Kate's acquaintance with her was greater than +he had gathered. She had written of it in due course +as a new and amusing one, and he had written back +that he had met over there, and that he much liked, +the young person; whereupon she had answered that +he must find out about her at home. Kate, in the +event, however, had not returned to that, and he had +of course, with so many things to find out about, been +otherwise taken up. Little Miss Theale's individual +history was not stuff for his newspaper; besides which, +moreover, he was seeing but too many little Miss +Theales. They even went so far as to impose themselves +as one of the groups of social phenomena that +fell into the scheme of his public letters. For this +group in especial perhaps—the irrepressible, the +supereminent young persons—his best pen was +ready. Thus it was that there could come back to him +in London, an hour or two after their luncheon with +the American pair, the sense of a situation for which +Kate hadn't wholly prepared him. Possibly indeed +as marked as this was his recovered perception that +preparations, of more than one kind, had been exactly +what, both yesterday and to-day, he felt her as having +in hand. That appearance in fact, if he dwelt on it, +so ministered to apprehension as to require some +brushing away. He shook off the suspicion to some +extent, on their separating first from their hostesses +and then from each other, by the aid of a long and +rather aimless walk. He was to go to the office later, +but he had the next two or three hours, and he gave +himself as a pretext that he had eaten much too much. +After Kate had asked him to put her into a cab—which, +as an announced, a resumed policy on her +part, he found himself deprecating—he stood a +while by a corner and looked vaguely forth at his +London. There was always doubtless a moment for +the absentee recaptured—<i>the</i> moment, that of the +reflux of the first emotion—at which it was beyond +disproof that one was back. His full parenthesis was +closed, and he was once more but a sentence, of a sort, +in the general text, the text that, from his momentary +street-corner, showed as a great grey page of print +that somehow managed to be crowded without being +"fine." The grey, however, was more or less the blur +of a point of view not yet quite seized again; and +there would be colour enough to come out. He was +back, flatly enough, but back to possibilities and +prospects, and the ground he now somewhat sightlessly +covered was the act of renewed possession. +</p><p> +He walked northward without a plan, without suspicion, +quite in the direction his little New York +friend, in her restless ramble, had taken a day or two +before. He reached, like Milly, the Regent's Park; +and though he moved further and faster he finally +sat down, like Milly, from the force of thought. For +him too in this position, be it added—and he might +positively have occupied the same bench—various +troubled fancies folded their wings. He had no more +yet said what he really wanted than Kate herself had +found time. She should hear enough of that in a couple +of days. He had practically not pressed her as to +what most concerned them; it had seemed so to concern +them during these first hours but to hold each +other, spiritually speaking, close. This at any rate +was palpable, that there were at present more things +rather than fewer between them. The explanation +about the two ladies would be part of the lot, yet +could wait with all the rest. They were not meanwhile +certainly what most made him roam—the +missing explanations weren't. That was what she +had so often said before, and always with the effect of +suddenly breaking off: "Now please call me a good +cab." Their previous encounters, the times when they +had reached in their stroll the south side of the park, +had had a way of winding up with this special irrelevance. +It was effectively what most divided them, +for he would generally, but for her reasons, have been +able to jump in with her. What did she think he +wished to do to her?—it was a question he had had +occasion to put. A small matter, however, doubtless—since, +when it came to that, they didn't depend on +cabs good or bad for the sense of union: its importance +was less from the particular loss than as a kind +of irritating mark of her expertness. This expertness, +under providence, had been great from the first, so +far as joining him was concerned; and he was critical +only because it had been still greater, even from the +first too, in respect to leaving him. He had put the +question to her again that afternoon, on the repetition +of her appeal—had asked her once more what she +supposed he wished to do. He recalled, on his bench +in the Regent's Park, the freedom of fancy, funny and +pretty, with which she had answered; recalled the moment +itself, while the usual hansom charged them, +during which he felt himself, disappointed as he was, +grimacing back at the superiority of her very "humour," +in its added grace of gaiety, to the celebrated +solemn American. Their fresh appointment had been +at all events by that time made, and he should see +what her choice in respect to it—a surprise as well as +a relief—would do toward really simplifying. It +meant either new help or new hindrance, though it +took them at least out of the streets. And her naming +this privilege had naturally made him ask if Mrs. +Lowder knew of his return. +</p><p> +"Not from me," Kate had replied. "But I shall +speak to her now." And she had argued, as with +rather a quick fresh view, that it would now be quite +easy. "We've behaved for months so properly that +I've margin surely for my mention of you. You'll +come to see <i>her</i>, and she'll leave you with me; she'll +show her good nature, and her lack of betrayed fear, +in that. With her, you know, you've never broken, +quite the contrary, and she likes you as much as ever. +We're leaving town; it will be the end; just now +therefore it's nothing to ask. I'll ask to-night," Kate +had wound up, "and if you'll leave it to me—my +cleverness, I assure you, has grown infernal—I'll +make it all right." +</p><p> +He had of course thus left it to her and he was wondering +more about it now than he had wondered there +in Brook Street. He repeated to himself that if it +wasn't in the line of triumph it was in the line of +muddle. This indeed, no doubt, was as a part of his +wonder for still other questions. Kate had really got +off without meeting his little challenge about the +terms of their intercourse with her dear Milly. Her +dear Milly, it was sensible, <i>was</i> somehow in the picture. +Her dear Milly, popping up in his absence, occupied—he +couldn't have said quite why he felt it—more +of the foreground than one would have expected +her in advance to find clear. She took up room, and it +was almost as if room had been made for her. Kate +had appeared to take for granted he would know why +it had been made; but that was just the point. It was +a foreground in which he himself, in which his connexion +with Kate, scarce enjoyed a space to turn +round. But Miss Theale was perhaps at the present +juncture a possibility of the same sort as the softened, +if not the squared, Aunt Maud. It might be true of +her also that if she weren't a bore she'd be a convenience. +It rolled over him of a sudden, after he had +resumed his walk, that this might easily be what Kate +had meant. The charming girl adored her—Densher +had for himself made out that—and would protect, +would lend a hand, to their interviews. These +might take place, in other words, on her premises, +which would remove them still better from the streets. +<i>That</i> was an explanation which did hang together. +It was impaired a little, of a truth, by this fact that +their next encounter was rather markedly not to depend +upon her. Yet this fact in turn would be accounted +for by the need of more preliminaries. One +of the things he conceivably should gain on Thursday +at Lancaster Gate would be a further view of that +propriety. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">II</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +It was extraordinary enough that he should actually +be finding himself, when Thursday arrived, none so +wide of the mark. Kate hadn't come all the way to +this for him, but she had come to a good deal by the +end of a quarter of an hour. What she had begun +with was her surprise at her appearing to have left +him on Tuesday anything more to understand. The +parts, as he now saw, under her hand, did fall more or +less together, and it wasn't even as if she had spent +the interval in twisting and fitting them. She was +bright and handsome, not fagged and worn, with the +general clearness; for it certainly stuck out enough +that if the American ladies themselves weren't to be +squared, which was absurd, they fairly imposed the +necessity of trying Aunt Maud again. One couldn't +say to them, kind as she had been to them: "We'll +meet, please, whenever you'll let us, at your house; +but we count on you to help us to keep it secret." +They must in other terms inevitably speak to Aunt +Maud—it would be of the last awkwardness to ask +them not to: Kate had embraced all this in her choice +of speaking first. What Kate embraced altogether +was indeed wonderful to-day for Densher, though he +perhaps struck himself rather as getting it out of her +piece by piece than as receiving it in a steady light. +He had always felt, however, that the more he asked +of her the more he found her prepared, as he imaged +it, to hand out. He had said to her more than once +even before his absence: "You keep the key of the +cupboard, and I foresee that when we're married +you'll dole me out my sugar by lumps." She had replied +that she rejoiced in his assumption that sugar +would be his diet, and the domestic arrangement so +prefigured might have seemed already to prevail. The +supply from the cupboard at this hour was doubtless, +of a truth, not altogether cloyingly sweet; but it met +in a manner his immediate requirements. If her explanations +at any rate prompted questions the questions +no more exhausted them than they exhausted +her patience. And they were naturally, of the series, +the simpler; as for instance in his taking it from her +that Miss Theale then could do nothing for them. He +frankly brought out what he had ventured to think +possible. "If we can't meet here and we've really +exhausted the charms of the open air and the crowd, +some such little raft in the wreck, some occasional +opportunity like that of Tuesday, has been present to +me these two days as better than nothing. But if our +friends are so accountable to this house of course +there's no more to be said. And it's one more nail, +thank God, in the coffin of our odious delay." He was +but too glad without more ado to point the moral. +"Now I hope you see we can't work it anyhow." +</p><p> +If she laughed for this—and her spirits seemed +really high—it was because of the opportunity that, +at the hotel, he had most shown himself as enjoying. +"Your idea's beautiful when one remembers that +you hadn't a word except for Milly." But she was +as beautifully good-humoured. "You might of course +get used to her—you <i>will.</i> You're quite right—so +long as they're with us or near us." And she put it, +lucidly, that the dear things couldn't <i>help</i>, simply as +charming friends, giving them a lift. "They'll speak +to Aunt Maud, but they won't shut their doors to us: +that would be another matter. A friend always helps—and +she's a friend." She had left Mrs. Stringham +by this time out of the question; she had reduced it to +Milly. "Besides, she particularly likes us. She particularly +likes <i>you</i>. I say, old boy, make something of +that." He felt her dodging the ultimatum he had just +made sharp, his definite reminder of how little, at the +best, they could work it; but there were certain of his +remarks—those mostly of the sharper penetration—that +it had been quite her practice from the first not +formally, not reverently to notice. She showed the +effect of them in ways less trite. This was what happened +now: he didn't think in truth that she wasn't +really minding. She took him up, none the less, on a +minor question. "You say we can't meet here, but +you see it's just what we do. What could be more +lovely than this?" +</p><p> +It wasn't to torment him—that again he didn't +believe; but he had to come to the house in some discomfort, +so that he frowned a little at her calling it +thus a luxury. Wasn't there an element in it of coming +back into bondage? The bondage might be veiled +and varnished, but he knew in his bones how little the +very highest privileges of Lancaster Gate could ever +be a sign of their freedom. They were upstairs, in +one of the smaller apartments of state, a room arranged +as a boudoir, but visibly unused—it defied +familiarity—and furnished in the ugliest of blues. +He had immediately looked with interest at the closed +doors, and Kate had met his interest with the assurance +that it was all right, that Aunt Maud did them +justice—so far, that was, as this particular time was +concerned; that they should be alone and have nothing +to fear. But the fresh allusion to this that he +had drawn from her acted on him now more directly, +brought him closer still to the question. They <i>were</i> +alone—it <i>was</i> all right: he took in anew the shut +doors and the permitted privacy, the solid stillness of +the great house. They connected themselves on the +spot with something made doubly vivid in him by the +whole present play of her charming strong will. What +it amounted to was that he couldn't have her—hanged +if he could!—evasive. He couldn't and he +wouldn't—wouldn't have her inconvenient and +elusive. He didn't want her deeper than himself, +fine as it might be as wit or as character; he wanted +to keep her where their communications would be +straight and easy and their intercourse independent. +The effect of this was to make him say in a moment: +"Will you take me just as I am?" +</p><p> +She turned a little pale for the tone of truth in it—which +qualified to his sense delightfully the strength +of her will; and the pleasure he found in this was not +the less for her breaking out after an instant into a +strain that stirred him more than any she had ever +used with him. "Ah do let me try myself! I assure +you I see my way—so don't spoil it: wait for me and +give me time. Dear man," Kate said, "only believe in +me, and it will be beautiful." +</p><p> +He hadn't come back to hear her talk of his believing +in her as if he didn't; but he had come back—and +it all was upon him now—to seize her with a +sudden intensity that her manner of pleading with +him had made, as happily appeared, irresistible. He +laid strong hands upon her to say, almost in anger, +"Do you love me, love me, love me?" and she closed +her eyes as with the sense that he might strike her but +that she could gratefully take it. Her surrender was +her response, her response her surrender; and, though +scarce hearing what she said, he so profited by these +things that it could for the time be ever so intimately +appreciable to him that he was keeping her. The long +embrace in which they held each other was the rout of +evasion, and he took from it the certitude that what +she had from him was real to her. It was stronger than +an uttered vow, and the name he was to give it in +afterthought was that she had been sublimely sincere. +<i>That</i> was all he asked—sincerity making a basis that +would bear almost anything. This settled so much, +and settled it so thoroughly, that there was nothing +left to ask her to swear to. Oaths and vows apart, +now they could talk. It seemed in fact only now that +their questions were put on the table. He had taken +up more expressly at the end of five minutes her plea +for her own plan, and it was marked that the difference +made by the passage just enacted was a difference +in favour of her choice of means. Means had +somehow suddenly become a detail—her province +and her care; it had grown more consistently vivid +that her intelligence was one with her passion. "I +certainly don't want," he said—and he could say it +with a smile of indulgence—"to be all the while +bringing it up that I don't trust you." +</p><p> +"I should hope not! What do you think I want to +do?" +</p><p> +He had really at this to make out a little what he +thought, and the first thing that put itself in evidence +was of course the oddity, after all, of their game, to +which he could but frankly allude. "We're doing, +at the best, in trying to temporise in so special a way, +a thing most people would call us fools for." But his +visit passed, all the same, without his again attempting +to make "just as he was" serve. He had no more +money just as he was than he had had just as he had +been, or than he should have, probably, when it came +to that, just as he always would be; whereas she, on +her side, in comparison with her state of some months +before, had measureably more to relinquish. He easily +saw how their meeting at Lancaster Gate gave more +of an accent to that quantity than their meeting at +stations or in parks; and yet on the other hand he +couldn't urge this against it. If Mrs. Lowder was indifferent +her indifference added in a manner to what +Kate's taking him as he was would call on her to sacrifice. +Such in fine was her art with him that she +seemed to put the question of their still waiting into +quite other terms than the terms of ugly blue, of florid +Sèvres, of complicated brass, in which their boudoir +expressed it. She said almost all in fact by saying, on +this article of Aunt Maud, after he had once more +pressed her, that when he should see her, as must inevitably +soon happen, he would understand. "Do you +mean," he asked at this, "that there's any <i>definite</i> +sign of her coming round? I'm not talking," he explained, +"of mere hypocrisies in her, or mere brave +duplicities. Remember, after all, that supremely +clever as we are, and as strong a team, I admit, as +there is going—remember that she can play with us +quite as much as we play with her." +</p><p> +"She doesn't want to play with <i>me</i>, my dear," +Kate lucidly replied; "she doesn't want to make me +suffer a bit more than she need. She cares for me too +much, and everything she does or doesn't do has a +value. <i>This</i> has a value—her being as she has been +about us to-day. I believe she's in her room, where +she's keeping strictly to herself while you're here with +me. But that isn't 'playing'—not a bit." +</p><p> +"What is it then," the young man returned—"from +the moment it isn't her blessing and a cheque?" +</p><p> +Kate was complete. "It's simply her absence of +smallness. There is something in her above trifles. +She <i>generally</i> trusts us; she doesn't propose to hunt +us into corners; and if we frankly ask for a thing—why," +said Kate, "she shrugs, but she lets it go. She +has really but one fault—she's indifferent, on such +ground as she has taken about us, to details. However," +the girl cheerfully went on, "it isn't in detail +we fight her." +</p><p> +"It seems to me," Densher brought out after a moment's +thought of this, "that it's in detail we deceive +her"—a speech that, as soon as he had uttered it, +applied itself for him, as also visibly for his companion, +to the afterglow of their recent embrace. +</p><p> +Any confusion attaching to this adventure, however, +dropped from Kate, whom, as he could see with +sacred joy, it must take more than that to make compunctious. +"I don't say we can do it again. I mean," +she explained, "meet here." +</p><p> +Densher indeed had been wondering where they +could do it again. If Lancaster Gate was so limited +that issue reappeared. "I mayn't come back at all?" +</p><p> +"Certainly—to see her. It's she, really," his +companion smiled, "who's in love with you." +</p><p> +But it made him—a trifle more grave—look at +her a moment. "Don't make out, you know, that +every one's in love with me." +</p><p> +She hesitated. "I don't say every one." +</p><p> +"You said just now Miss Theale." +</p><p> +"I said she liked you—yes." +</p><p> +"Well, it comes to the same thing." With which, +however, he pursued: "Of course I ought to thank +Mrs. Lowder in person. I mean for <i>this</i>—as from +myself." +</p><p> +"Ah but, you know, not too much!" She had an +ironic gaiety for the implications of his "this," besides +wishing to insist on a general prudence. "She'll +wonder what you're thanking her for!" +</p><p> +Densher did justice to both considerations. "Yes, +I can't very well tell her all." +</p><p> +It was perhaps because he said it so gravely that +Kate was again in a manner amused. Yet she gave +out light. "You can't very well 'tell' her anything, +and that doesn't matter. Only be nice to her. Please +her; make her see how clever you are—only without +letting her see that you're trying. If you're charming +to her you've nothing else to do." +</p><p> +But she oversimplified too. "I can be 'charming' +to her, so far as I see, only by letting her suppose I +give you up—which I'll be hanged if I do! It <i>is</i>," +he said with feeling, "a game." +</p><p> +"Of course it's a game. But she'll never suppose +you give me up—or I give <i>you</i>—if you keep reminding +her how you enjoy our interviews." +</p><p> +"Then if she has to see us as obstinate and constant," +Densher asked, "what good does it do?" +</p><p> +Kate was for a moment checked. "What good +does what—?" +</p><p> +"Does my pleasing her—does anything. I <i>can't</i>," +he impatiently declared, "please her." +</p><p> +Kate looked at him hard again, disappointed at +his want of consistency; but it appeared to determine +in her something better than a mere complaint. +"Then <i>I</i> can! Leave it to me." With which she came +to him under the compulsion, again, that had united +them shortly before, and took hold of him in her urgency +to the same tender purpose. It was her form of +entreaty renewed and repeated, which made after all, +as he met it, their great fact clear. And it somehow +clarified <i>all</i> things so to possess each other. The effect +of it was that, once more, on these terms, he could +only be generous. He had so on the spot then left +everything to her that she reverted in the course of a +few moments to one of her previous—and as positively +seemed—her most precious ideas. "You +accused me just now of saying that Milly's in love +with you. Well, if you come to that, I do say it. So +there you are. That's the good she'll do us. It makes +a basis for her seeing you—so that she'll help us to +go on." +</p><p> +Densher stared—she was wondrous all round. +"And what sort of a basis does it make for my seeing +<i>her?</i>" +</p><p> +"Oh I don't mind!" Kate smiled. +</p><p> +"Don't mind my leading her on?" +</p><p> +She put it differently. "Don't mind her leading +<i>you</i>." +</p><p> +"Well, she won't—so it's nothing not to mind. +But how can that 'help,'" he pursued, "with what +she knows?" +</p><p> +"What she knows? That needn't prevent." +</p><p> +He wondered. "Prevent her loving us?" +</p><p> +"Prevent her helping you. She's <i>like</i> that," Kate +Croy explained. +</p><p> +It took indeed some understanding. "Making +nothing of the fact that I love another?" +</p><p> +"Making everything," said Kate. "To console +you." +</p><p> +"But for what?" +</p><p> +"For not getting your other." +</p><p> +He continued to stare. "But how does she +know—?" +</p><p> +"That you <i>won't</i> get her? She doesn't; but on the +other hand she doesn't know you will. Meanwhile +she sees you baffled, for she knows of Aunt Maud's +stand. <i>That</i>"—Kate was lucid—"gives her the +chance to be nice to you." +</p><p> +"And what does it give <i>me</i>," the young man none +the less rationally asked, "the chance to be? A brute +of a humbug to her?" +</p><p> +Kate so possessed her facts, as it were, that she +smiled at his violence. "You'll extraordinarily like +her. She's exquisite. And there are reasons. I mean +others." +</p><p> +"What others?" +</p><p> +"Well, I'll tell you another time. Those I give +you," the girl added, "are enough to go on with." +</p><p> +"To go on to what?" +</p><p> +"Why, to seeing her again—say as soon as you +can: which, moreover, on all grounds, is no more than +decent of you." +</p><p> +He of course took in her reference, and he had fully +in mind what had passed between them in New York. +It had been no great quantity, but it had made distinctly +at the time for his pleasure; so that anything +in the nature of an appeal in the name of it could have +a slight kindling consequence. "Oh I shall naturally +call again without delay. Yes," said Densher, "her +being in love with me is nonsense; but I must, quite +independently of that, make every acknowledgement +of favours received." +</p><p> +It appeared practically all Kate asked. "Then you +see. I shall meet you there." +</p><p> +"I don't quite see," he presently returned, "why +she should wish to receive you for it." +</p><p> +"She receives me for myself—that is for <i>her</i> self. +She thinks no end of me. That I should have to drum +it into you!" +</p><p> +Yet still he didn't take it. "Then I confess she's +beyond me." +</p><p> +Well, Kate could but leave it as she saw it. "She +regards me as already—in these few weeks—her +dearest friend. It's quite separate. We're in, she +and I, ever so deep." And it was to confirm this that, +as if it had flashed upon her that he was somewhere +at sea, she threw out at last her own real light. "She +doesn't of course know I care for <i>you</i>. She thinks I +care so little that it's not worth speaking of." That +he had been somewhere at sea these remarks made +quickly clear, and Kate hailed the effect with surprise. +"Have you been supposing that she does know—?" +</p><p> +"About our situation? Certainly, if you're such +friends as you show me—and if you haven't otherwise +represented it to her." She uttered at this such +a sound of impatience that he stood artlessly vague. +"You <i>have</i> denied it to her?" +</p><p> +She threw up her arms at his being so backward. +"'Denied it'? My dear man, we've never spoken of +you." +</p><p> +"Never, never?" +</p><p> +"Strange as it may appear to your glory—never." +</p><p> +He couldn't piece it together. "But won't Mrs. +Lowder have spoken?" +</p><p> +"Very probably. But of <i>you</i>. Not of me." +</p><p> +This struck him as obscure. "How does she know +me but as part and parcel of you?" +</p><p> +"How?" Kate triumphantly asked. "Why exactly +to make nothing of it, to have nothing to do with it, to +stick consistently to her line about it. Aunt Maud's +line is to keep all reality out of our relation—that +is out of my being in danger from you—by not having +so much as suspected or heard of it. She'll get +rid of it, as she believes, by ignoring it and sinking +it—if she only does so hard enough. Therefore <i>she</i>, +in her manner, 'denies' it if you will. That's how she +knows you otherwise than as part and parcel of me. +She won't for a moment have allowed either to Mrs. +Stringham or to Milly that I've in any way, as they +say, distinguished you." +</p><p> +"And you don't suppose," said Densher, "that +they must have made it out for themselves?" +</p><p> +"No, my dear, I don't; not even," Kate declared, +"after Milly's so funnily bumping against us on +Tuesday." +</p><p> +"She doesn't see from <i>that</i>—?" +</p><p> +"That you're, so to speak, mad about me. Yes, +she sees, no doubt, that you regard me with a complacent +eye—for you show it, I think, always too +much and too crudely. But nothing beyond that. I +don't show it too much; I don't perhaps—to please +you completely where others are concerned—show it +enough." +</p><p> +"Can you show it or not as you like?" Densher +demanded. +</p><p> +It pulled her up a little, but she came out resplendent. +"Not where <i>you</i> are concerned. Beyond seeing +that you're rather gone," she went on, "Milly only +sees that I'm decently good to you." +</p><p> +"Very good indeed she must think it!" +</p><p> +"Very good indeed then. She easily sees me," Kate +smiled, "as very good indeed." +</p><p> +The young man brooded. "But in a sense to take +some explaining." +</p><p> +"Then I explain." She was really fine; it came +back to her essential plea for her freedom of action +and his beauty of trust. "I mean," she added, "I +<i>will</i> explain." +</p><p> +"And what will I do?" +</p><p> +"Recognise the difference it must make if she +thinks." But here in truth Kate faltered. It was his +silence alone that, for the moment, took up her apparent +meaning; and before he again spoke she had +returned to remembrance and prudence. They were +now not to forget that, Aunt Maud's liberality having +put them on their honour, they mustn't spoil their +case by abusing it. He must leave her in time; they +should probably find it would help them. But she +came back to Milly too. "Mind you go to see her." +</p><p> +Densher still, however, took up nothing of this. +"Then I may come again?" +</p><p> +"For Aunt Maud—as much as you like. But we +can't again," said Kate, "play her <i>this trick</i>. I can't +see you here alone." +</p><p> +"Then where?" +</p><p> +"Go to see Milly," she for all satisfaction repeated. +</p><p> +"And what good will that do me?" +</p><p> +"Try it and you'll see." +</p><p> +"You mean you'll manage to be there?" Densher +asked. "Say you are, how will that give us privacy?" +</p><p> +"Try it—you'll see," the girl once more returned. +"We must manage as we can." +</p><p> +"That's precisely what <i>I</i> feel. It strikes me we +might manage better." His idea of this was a thing +that made him an instant hesitate; yet he brought it +out with conviction. "Why won't you come to <i>me?</i>" +</p><p> +It was a question her troubled eyes seemed to tell +him he was scarce generous in expecting her definitely +to answer, and by looking to him to wait at least she +appealed to something that she presently made him +feel as his pity. It was on that special shade of tenderness +that he thus found himself thrown back; and +while he asked of his spirit and of his flesh just what +concession they could arrange she pressed him yet +again on the subject of her singular remedy for their +embarrassment. It might have been irritating had she +ever struck him as having in her mind a stupid corner. +"You'll see," she said, "the difference it will make." +</p><p> +Well, since she wasn't stupid she was intelligent; +it was he who was stupid—the proof of which was +that he would do what she liked. But he made a last +effort to understand, her allusion to the "difference" +bringing him round to it. He indeed caught at something +subtle but strong even as he spoke. "Is what +you meant a moment ago that the difference will be in +her being made to believe you hate me?" +</p><p> +Kate, however, had simply, for this gross way of +putting it, one of her more marked shows of impatience; +with which in fact she sharply closed their +discussion. He opened the door on a sign from her, +and she accompanied him to the top of the stairs with +an air of having so put their possibilities before him +that questions were idle and doubts perverse. "I +verily believe I <i>shall</i> hate you if you spoil for me the +beauty of what I see!" +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">III</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +He was really, notwithstanding, to hear more from +her of what she saw; and the very next occasion had +for him still other surprises than that. He received +from Mrs. Lowder on the morning after his visit to +Kate the telegraphic expression of a hope that he +might be free to dine with them that evening; and his +freedom affected him as fortunate even though in +some degree qualified by her missive. "Expecting +American friends whom I'm so glad to find you +know!" His knowledge of American friends was +clearly an accident of which he was to taste the fruit +to the last bitterness. This apprehension, however, +we hasten to add, enjoyed for him, in the immediate +event, a certain merciful shrinkage; the immediate +event being that, at Lancaster Gate, five minutes +after his due arrival, prescribed him for eight-thirty, +Mrs. Stringham came in alone. The long daylight, +the postponed lamps, the habit of the hour, made +dinners late and guests still later; so that, punctual as +he was, he had found Mrs. Lowder alone, with Kate +herself not yet in the field. He had thus had with her +several bewildering moments—bewildering by reason, +fairly, of their tacit invitation to him to be supernaturally +simple. This was exactly, goodness knew, +what he wanted to be; but he had never had it so +largely and freely—<i>so</i> supernaturally simply, for +that matter—imputed to him as of easy achievement. +It was a particular in which Aunt Maud appeared to +offer herself as an example, appeared to say quite +agreeably: "What I want of you, don't you see? is to +be just exactly as <i>I</i> am." The quantity of the article +required was what might especially have caused him +to stagger—he liked so, in general, the quantities in +which Mrs. Lowder dealt. He would have liked as +well to ask her how feasible she supposed it for a poor +young man to resemble her at any point; but he had +after all soon enough perceived that he was doing as +she wished by letting his wonder show just a little as +silly. He was conscious moreover of a small strange +dread of the results of discussion with her—strange, +truly, because it was her good nature, not her asperity, +that he feared. Asperity might have made him +angry—in which there was always a comfort; good +nature, in his conditions, had a tendency to make him +ashamed—which Aunt Maud indeed, wonderfully, +liking him for himself, quite struck him as having +guessed. To spare him therefore she also avoided discussion; +she kept him down by refusing to quarrel +with him. This was what she now proposed to him to +enjoy, and his secret discomfort was his sense that on +the whole it was what would best suit him. Being +kept down was a bore, but his great dread, verily, was +of being ashamed, which was a thing distinct; and it +mattered but little that he was ashamed of that too. +It was of the essence of his position that in such a +house as this the tables could always be turned on +him. "What do you offer, what do you offer?"—the +place, however muffled in convenience and decorum, +constantly hummed for him with that thick +irony. The irony was a renewed reference to obvious +bribes, and he had already seen how little aid came to +him from denouncing the bribes as ugly in form. That +was what the precious metals—they alone—could +afford to be; it was vain enough for him accordingly +to try to impart a gloss to his own comparative brummagem. +The humiliation of this impotence was precisely +what Aunt Maud sought to mitigate for him by +keeping him down; and as her effort to that end had +doubtless never yet been so visible he had probably +never felt so definitely placed in the world as while he +waited with her for her half-dozen other guests. She +welcomed him genially back from the States, as to +his view of which her few questions, though not coherent, +were comprehensive, and he had the amusement +of seeing in her, as through a clear glass, the outbreak +of a plan and the sudden consciousness of a +curiosity. She became aware of America, under his +eyes, as a possible scene for social operations; the idea +of a visit to the wonderful country had clearly but just +occurred to her, yet she was talking of it, at the end of +a minute, as her favourite dream. He didn't believe +in it, but he pretended to; this helped her as well as +anything else to treat him as harmless and blameless. +She was so engaged, with the further aid of a complete +absence of allusions, when the highest effect was +given her method by the beautiful entrance of Kate. +The method therefore received support all round, for +no young man could have been less formidable than +the person to the relief of whose shyness her niece +ostensibly came. The ostensible, in Kate, struck him +altogether, on this occasion, as prodigious; while +scarcely less prodigious, for that matter, was his own +reading, on the spot, of the relation between his companions—a +relation lighted for him by the straight +look, not exactly loving nor lingering, yet searching +and soft, that, on the part of their hostess, the girl had +to reckon with as she advanced. It took her in from +head to foot, and in doing so it told a story that made +poor Densher again the least bit sick: it marked so +something with which Kate habitually and consummately +reckoned. +</p><p> +That was the story—that she was always, for her +beneficent dragon, under arms; living up, every hour, +but especially at festal hours, to the "value" Mrs. +Lowder had attached to her. High and fixed, this estimate +ruled on each occasion at Lancaster Gate the +social scene; so that he now recognised in it something +like the artistic idea, the plastic substance, imposed +by tradition, by genius, by criticism, in respect +to a given character, on a distinguished actress. As +such a person was to dress the part, to walk, to look, +to speak, in every way to express, the part, so all this +was what Kate was to do for the character she had +undertaken, under her aunt's roof, to represent. It +was made up, the character, of definite elements and +touches—things all perfectly ponderable to criticism; +and the way for her to meet criticism was evidently at +the start to be sure her make-up had had the last +touch and that she looked at least no worse than usual. +Aunt Maud's appreciation of that to-night was indeed +managerial, and the performer's own contribution +fairly that of the faultless soldier on parade. Densher +saw himself for the moment as in his purchased stall +at the play; the watchful manager was in the depths +of a box and the poor actress in the glare of the footlights. +But she <i>passed</i>, the poor performer—he could +see how she always passed; her wig, her paint, her +jewels, every mark of her expression impeccable, and +her entrance accordingly greeted with the proper +round of applause. Such impressions as we thus note +for Densher come and go, it must be granted, in very +much less time than notation demands; but we may +none the less make the point that there was, still further, +time among them for him to feel almost too +scared to take part in the ovation. He struck himself +as having lost, for the minute, his presence of mind—so +that in any case he only stared in silence at the +older woman's technical challenge and at the younger +one's disciplined face. It was as if the drama—it +thus came to him, for the fact of a drama there was +no blinking—was between <i>them</i>, them quite preponderantly; +with Merton Densher relegated to mere +spectatorship, a paying place in front, and one of the +most expensive. This was why his appreciation had +turned for the instant to fear—had just turned, as +we have said, to sickness; and in spite of the fact that +the disciplined face did offer him over the footlights, +as he believed, the small gleam, fine faint but exquisite, +of a special intelligence. So might a practised +performer, even when raked by double-barrelled +glasses, seem to be all in her part and yet convey a +sign to the person in the house she loved best. +</p><p> +The drama, at all events, as Densher saw it, meanwhile +went on—amplified soon enough by the advent +of two other guests, stray gentlemen both, stragglers +in the rout of the season, who visibly presented themselves +to Kate during the next moments as subjects +for a like impersonal treatment and sharers in a like +usual mercy. At opposite ends of the social course, +they displayed, in respect to the "figure" that each, +in his way, made, one the expansive, the other the +contractile effect of the perfect white waistcoat. A +scratch company of two innocuous youths and a pacified +veteran was therefore what now offered itself to +Mrs. Stringham, who rustled in a little breathless and +full of the compunction of having had to come alone. +Her companion, at the last moment, had been indisposed—positively +not well enough, and so had +packed her off, insistently, with excuses, with wild +regrets. This circumstance of their charming friend's +illness was the first thing Kate took up with Densher +on their being able after dinner, without bravado, to +have ten minutes "naturally," as she called it—which +wasn't what <i>he</i> did—together; but it was already +as if the young man had, by an odd impression, +throughout the meal, not been wholly deprived of +Miss Theale's participation. Mrs. Lowder had made +dear Milly the topic, and it proved, on the spot, a +topic as familiar to the enthusiastic younger as to +the sagacious older man. Any knowledge they might +lack Mrs. Lowder's niece was moreover alert to +supply, while Densher himself was freely appealed to +as the most privileged, after all, of the group. Wasn't +it he who had in a manner invented the wonderful +creature—through having seen her first, caught her +in her native jungle? Hadn't he more or less paved +the way for her by his prompt recognition of her +rarity, by preceding her, in a friendly spirit—as he +had the "ear" of society—with a sharp flashlight or +two? +</p><p> +He met, poor Densher, these enquiries as he could, +listening with interest, yet with discomfort; wincing +in particular, dry journalist as he was, to find it seemingly +supposed of him that he had put his pen—oh +his "pen!"—at the service of private distinction. +The ear of society?—they were talking, or almost, +as if he had publicly paragraphed a modest young +lady. They dreamt dreams, in truth, he appeared to +perceive, that fairly waked <i>him</i> up, and he settled +himself in his place both to resist his embarrassment +and to catch the full revelation. His embarrassment +came naturally from the fact that if he could claim no +credit for Miss Theale's success, so neither could he +gracefully insist on his not having been concerned +with her. What touched him most nearly was that the +occasion took on somehow the air of a commemorative +banquet, a feast to celebrate a brilliant if brief +career. There was of course more said about the +heroine than if she hadn't been absent, and he found +himself rather stupefied at the range of Milly's triumph. +Mrs. Lowder had wonders to tell of it; the +two wearers of the waistcoat, either with sincerity or +with hypocrisy, professed in the matter an equal expertness; +and Densher at last seemed to know himself +in presence of a social "case." It was Mrs. Stringham, +obviously, whose testimony would have been +most invoked hadn't she been, as her friend's representative, +rather confined to the function of inhaling +the incense; so that Kate, who treated her beautifully, +smiling at her, cheering and consoling her across the +table, appeared benevolently both to speak and to interpret +for her. Kate spoke as if she wouldn't perhaps +understand <i>their</i> way of appreciating Milly, but +would let them none the less, in justice to their good +will, express it in their coarser fashion. Densher himself +wasn't unconscious in respect to this of a certain +broad brotherhood with Mrs. Stringham; wondering +indeed, while he followed the talk, how it might move +American nerves. He had only heard of them before, +but in his recent tour he had caught them in the remarkable +fact, and there was now a moment or two +when it came to him that he had perhaps—and not +in the way of an escape—taken a lesson from them. +They quivered, clearly, they hummed and drummed, +they leaped and bounded in Mrs. Stringham's typical +organism—this lady striking him as before all things +excited, as, in the native phrase, keyed-up, to a perception +of more elements in the occasion than he was +himself able to count. She was accessible to sides of +it, he imagined, that were as yet obscure to him; for, +though she unmistakeably rejoiced and soared, he +none the less saw her at moments as even more agitated +than pleasure required. It was a state of emotion +in her that could scarce represent simply an impatience +to report at home. Her little dry New England +brightness—he had "sampled" all the shades +of the American complexity, if complexity it were—had +its actual reasons for finding relief most in silence; +so that before the subject was changed he perceived +(with surprise at the others) that they had given her +enough of it. He had quite had enough of it himself +by the time he was asked if it were true that their +friend had really not made in her own country the +mark she had chalked so large in London. It was +Mrs. Lowder herself who addressed him that enquiry; +while he scarce knew if he were the more impressed +with her launching it under Mrs. Stringham's nose +or with her hope that he would allow to London the +honour of discovery. The less expansive of the white +waistcoats propounded the theory that they saw in +London—for all that was said—much further than +in the States: it wouldn't be the first time, he urged, +that they had taught the Americans to appreciate +(especially when it was funny) some native product. +He didn't mean that Miss Theale was funny—though +she was weird, and this was precisely her +magic; but it might very well be that New York, in +having her to show, hadn't been aware of its luck. +There <i>were</i> plenty of people who were nothing over +there and yet were awfully taken up in England; just +as—to make the balance right, thank goodness—they +sometimes sent out beauties and celebrities who +left the Briton cold. The Briton's temperature in +truth wasn't to be calculated—a formulation of the +matter that was not reached, however, without producing +in Mrs. Stringham a final feverish sally. She +announced that if the point of view for a proper admiration +of her young friend <i>had</i> seemed to fail a little +in New York, there was no manner of doubt of her +having carried Boston by storm. It pointed the moral +that Boston, for the finer taste, left New York nowhere; +and the good lady, as the exponent of this +doctrine—which she set forth at a certain length—made, +obviously, to Densher's mind, her nearest approach +to supplying the weirdness in which Milly's +absence had left them deficient. She made it indeed +effective for him by suddenly addressing him. "You +know nothing, sir—but not the least little bit—about +my friend." +</p><p> +He hadn't pretended he did, but there was a purity +of reproach in Mrs. Stringham's face and tone, a +purity charged apparently with solemn meanings; +so that for a little, small as had been his claim, he +couldn't but feel that she exaggerated. He wondered +what she did mean, but while doing so he defended +himself. "I certainly don't know enormously much—beyond +her having been most kind to me, in New +York, as a poor bewildered and newly landed alien, +and my having tremendously appreciated it." To +which he added, he scarce knew why, what had an +immediate success. "Remember, Mrs. Stringham, +that you weren't then present." +</p><p> +"Ah there you are!" said Kate with much gay expression, +though what it expressed he failed at the +time to make out. +</p><p> +"You weren't present <i>then</i>, dearest," Mrs. Lowder +richly concurred. "You don't know," she continued +with mellow gaiety, "how far things may have gone." +</p><p> +It made the little woman, he could see, really lose +her head. She had more things in that head than any +of them in any other; unless perhaps it were Kate, +whom he felt as indirectly watching him during this +foolish passage, though it pleased him—and because +of the foolishness—not to meet her eyes. He met +Mrs. Stringham's, which affected him: with her he +could on occasion clear it up—a sense produced by +the mute communion between them and really the +beginning, as the event was to show, of something +extraordinary. It was even already a little the effect +of this communion that Mrs. Stringham perceptibly +faltered in her retort to Mrs. Lowder's joke. "Oh it's +precisely my point that Mr. Densher <i>can't</i> have had +vast opportunities." And then she smiled at him. "I +wasn't away, you know, long." +</p><p> +It made everything, in the oddest way in the world, +immediately right for him. "And I wasn't <i>there</i> long, +either." He positively saw with it that nothing for +him, so far as she was concerned, would again be +wrong. "She's beautiful, but I don't say she's easy +to know." +</p><p> +"Ah she's a thousand and one things!" replied +the good lady, as if now to keep well with him. +</p><p> +He asked nothing better. "She was off with you to +these parts before I knew it. I myself was off too—away +off to wonderful parts, where I had endlessly +more to see." +</p><p> +"But you didn't forget her!" Aunt Maud interposed +with almost menacing archness. +</p><p> +"No, of course I didn't forget her. One doesn't +forget such charming impressions. But I never," he +lucidly maintained, "chattered to others about her." +</p><p> +"She'll thank you for that, sir," said Mrs. Stringham +with a flushed firmness. +</p><p> +"Yet doesn't silence in such a case," Aunt Maud +blandly enquired, "very often quite prove the depth +of the impression?" +</p><p> +He would have been amused, hadn't he been +slightly displeased, at all they seemed desirous to +fasten on him. "Well, the impression was as deep as +you like. But I really want Miss Theale to know," he +pursued for Mrs. Stringham, "that I don't figure by +any consent of my own as an authority about her." +</p><p> +Kate came to his assistance—if assistance it was—before +their friend had had time to meet this +charge. "You're right about her not being easy to +know. One <i>sees</i> her with intensity—sees her more +than one sees almost any one; but then one discovers +that that isn't knowing her and that one may know +better a person whom one doesn't 'see,' as I say, half +so much." +</p><p> +The discrimination was interesting, but it brought +them back to the fact of her success; and it was at +that comparatively gross circumstance, now so fully +placed before them, that Milly's anxious companion +sat and looked—looked very much as some spectator +in an old-time circus might have watched the oddity +of a Christian maiden, in the arena, mildly, +caressingly, martyred. It was the nosing and fumbling +not of lions and tigers but of domestic animals +let loose as for the joke. Even the joke made Mrs. +Stringham uneasy, and her mute communion with +Densher, to which we have alluded, was more and +more determined by it. He wondered afterwards if +Kate had made this out; though it was not indeed +till much later on that he found himself, in thought, +dividing the things she might have been conscious +of from the things she must have missed. If she actually +missed, at any rate, Mrs. Stringham's discomfort, +that but showed how her own idea held her. Her +own idea was, by insisting on the fact of the girl's +prominence as a feature of the season's end, to keep +Densher in relation, for the rest of them, both to present +and to past. "It's everything that has happened +<i>since</i> that makes you naturally a little shy about her. +You don't know what has happened since, but we do; +we've seen it and followed it; we've a little been <i>of</i> +it." The great thing for him, at this, as Kate gave it, +<i>was</i> in fact quite irresistibly that the case was a real +one—the kind of thing that, when one's patience +was shorter than one's curiosity, one had vaguely +taken for possible in London, but in which one had +never been even to this small extent concerned. The +little American's sudden social adventure, her happy +and, no doubt, harmless flourish, had probably been +favoured by several accidents, but it had been favoured +above all by the simple spring-board of the +scene, by one of those common caprices of the numberless +foolish flock, gregarious movements as inscrutable +as ocean-currents. The huddled herd had +drifted to her blindly—it might as blindly have +drifted away. There had been of course a signal, but +the great reason was probably the absence at the moment +of a larger lion. The bigger beast would come +and the smaller would then incontinently vanish. It +was at all events characteristic, and what was of the +essence of it was grist to his scribbling mill, matter +for his journalising hand. That hand already, in intention, +played over it, the "motive," as a sign of +the season, a feature of the time, of the purely expeditious +and rough-and-tumble nature of the social +boom. The boom as in <i>itself</i> required—that would +be the note; the subject of the process a comparatively +minor question. Anything was boomable +enough when nothing else was more so: the author of +the "rotten" book, the beauty who was no beauty, +the heiress who was only that, the stranger who was +for the most part saved from being inconveniently +strange but by being inconveniently familiar, the +American whose Americanism had been long desperately +discounted, the creature in fine as to whom +spangles or spots of any sufficiently marked and exhibited +sort could be loudly enough predicated. +</p><p> +So he judged at least, within his limits, and the +idea that what he had thus caught in the fact was the +trick of fashion and the tone of society went so far as +to make him take up again his sense of independence. +He had supposed himself civilised; but if this was +civilisation—! One could smoke one's pipe outside +when twaddle was within. He had rather avoided, as +we have remarked, Kate's eyes, but there came a moment +when he would fairly have liked to put it, across +the table, to her: "I say, light of my life, is <i>this</i> the +great world?" There came another, it must be added—and +doubtless as a result of something that, over +the cloth, did hang between them—when she struck +him as having quite answered: "Dear no—for what +do you take me? Not the least little bit: only a poor +silly, though quite harmless, imitation." What she +might have passed for saying, however, was practically +merged in what she did say, for she came overtly to his +aid, very much as if guessing some of his thoughts. +She enunciated, to relieve his bewilderment, the obvious +truth that you couldn't leave London for three +months at that time of the year and come back to +find your friends just where they were. As they had +<i>of course</i> been jigging away they might well be so red +in the face that you wouldn't know them. She reconciled +in fine his disclaimer about Milly with that +honour of having discovered her which it was vain for +him modestly to shirk. He <i>had</i> unearthed her, but it +was they, all of them together, who had developed +her. She was always a charmer, one of the greatest +ever seen, but she wasn't the person he had +"backed." +</p><p> +Densher was to feel sure afterwards that Kate had +had in these pleasantries no conscious, above all no +insolent purpose of making light of poor Susan Shepherd's +property in their young friend—which property, +by such remarks, was very much pushed to the +wall; but he was also to know that Mrs. Stringham +had secretly resented them, Mrs. Stringham holding +the opinion, of which he was ultimately to have a +glimpse, that all the Kate Croys in Christendom were +but dust for the feet of her Milly. That, it was true, +would be what she must reveal only when driven to +her last entrenchments and well cornered in her passion—the +rare passion of friendship, the sole passion +of her little life save the one other, more imperturbably +cerebral, that she entertained for the art of Guy +de Maupassant. She slipped in the observation that +her Milly was incapable of change, was just exactly, +on the contrary, the same Milly; but this made little +difference in the drift of Kate's contention. She was +perfectly kind to Susie: it was as if she positively +knew her as handicapped for any disagreement by +feeling that she, Kate, had "type," and by being +committed to admiration of type. Kate had occasion +subsequently—she found it somehow—to mention +to our young man Milly's having spoken to her of +this view on the good lady's part. She would like—Milly +had had it from her—to put Kate Croy in a +book and see what she could so do with her. "Chop +me up fine or serve me whole"—it was a way of being +got at that Kate professed she dreaded. It would be +Mrs. Stringham's, however, she understood, because +Mrs. Stringham, oddly, felt that with such stuff +as the strange English girl was made of, stuff that (in +spite of Maud Manningham, who was full of sentiment) +she had never known, there was none other to +be employed. These things were of later evidence, +yet Densher might even then have felt them in the air. +They were practically in it already when Kate, waiving +the question of her friend's chemical change, +wound up with the comparatively unobjectionable +proposition that he must now, having missed so much, +take them all up, on trust, further on. He met it peacefully, +a little perhaps as an example to Mrs. Stringham—"Oh +as far on as you like!" This even had +its effect: Mrs. Stringham appropriated as much of it +as might be meant for herself. The nice thing about +her was that she could measure how much; so that +by the time dinner was over they had really covered +ground. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">IV</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +The younger of the other men, it afterwards appeared, +was most in his element at the piano; so that +they had coffee and comic songs upstairs—the gentlemen, +temporarily relinquished, submitting easily +in this interest to Mrs. Lowder's parting injunction +not to sit too tight. Our especial young man sat +tighter when restored to the drawing-room; he made +it out perfectly with Kate that they might, off and on, +foregather without offence. He had perhaps stronger +needs in this general respect than she; but she had +better names for the scant risks to which she consented. +It was the blessing of a big house that intervals +were large and, of an August night, that windows +were open; whereby, at a given moment, on the wide +balcony, with the songs sufficiently sung, Aunt Maud +could hold her little court more freshly. Densher and +Kate, during these moments, occupied side by side +a small sofa—a luxury formulated by the latter as +the proof, under criticism, of their remarkably good +conscience. "To seem not to know each other—once +you're here—would be," the girl said, "to +overdo it"; and she arranged it charmingly that they +<i>must</i> have some passage to put Aunt Maud off the +scent. She would be wondering otherwise what in the +world they found their account in. For Densher, none +the less, the profit of snatched moments, snatched +contacts, was partial and poor; there were in particular +at present more things in his mind than he could +bring out while watching the windows. It was true, on +the other hand, that she suddenly met most of them—and +more than he could see on the spot—by coming +out for him with a reference to Milly that was not +in the key of those made at dinner. "She's not a bit +right, you know. I mean in health. Just see her to-night. +I mean it looks grave. For you she would +have come, you know, if it had been at all possible." +</p><p> +He took this in such patience as he could muster. +"What in the world's the matter with her?" +</p><p> +But Kate continued without saying. "Unless indeed +your being here has been just a reason for her +funking it." +</p><p> +"What in the world's the matter with her?" Densher +asked again. +</p><p> +"Why just what I've told you—that she likes you +so much." +</p><p> +"Then why should she deny herself the joy of +meeting me?" +</p><p> +Kate cast about—it would take so long to explain. +"And perhaps it's true that she <i>is</i> bad. She easily +may be." +</p><p> +"Quite easily, I should say, judging by Mrs. +Stringham, who's visibly preoccupied and worried." +</p><p> +"Visibly enough. Yet it mayn't," said Kate, "be +only for that." +</p><p> +"For what then?" +</p><p> +But this question too, on thinking, she neglected. +"Why, if it's anything real, doesn't that poor lady +go home? She'd be anxious, and she has done all +she need to be civil." +</p><p> +"I think," Densher remarked, "she has been quite +beautifully civil." +</p><p> +It made Kate, he fancied, look at him the least bit +harder; but she was already, in a manner, explaining. +"Her preoccupation is probably on two different +heads. One of them would make her hurry back, but +the other makes her stay. She's commissioned to tell +Milly all about you." +</p><p> +"Well then," said the young man between a laugh +and a sigh, "I'm glad I felt, downstairs, a kind of +'drawing' to her. Wasn't I rather decent to her?" +</p><p> +"Awfully nice. You've instincts, you fiend. It's +all," Kate declared, "as it should be." +</p><p> +"Except perhaps," he after a moment cynically +suggested, "that she isn't getting much good of me +now. Will she report to Milly on <i>this?</i>" And then as +Kate seemed to wonder what "this" might be: "On +our present disregard for appearances." +</p><p> +"Ah leave appearances to me!" She spoke in her +high way. "I'll make them all right. Aunt Maud, +moreover," she added, "has her so engaged that she +won't notice." Densher felt, with this, that his companion +had indeed perceptive flights he couldn't hope +to match—had for instance another when she still +subjoined: "And Mrs. Stringham's appearing to respond +just in order to make that impression." +</p><p> +"Well," Densher dropped with some humour, +"life's very interesting! I hope it's really as much so +for you as you make it for others; I mean judging by +what you make it for me. You seem to me to represent +it as thrilling for <i>ces dames</i>, and in a different way +for each: Aunt Maud, Susan Shepherd, Milly. But +what <i>is</i>," he wound up, "the matter? Do you mean +she's as ill as she looks?" +</p><p> +Kate's face struck him as replying at first that his +derisive speech deserved no satisfaction; then she +appeared to yield to a need of her own—the need to +make the point that "as ill as she looked" was what +Milly scarce could be. If she had been as ill as she +looked she could scarce be a question with them, for +her end would in that case be near. She believed herself +nevertheless—and Kate couldn't help believing +her too—seriously menaced. There was always the +fact that they had been on the point of leaving town, +the two ladies, and had suddenly been pulled up. "We +bade them good-bye—or all but—Aunt Maud and +I, the night before Milly, popping so very oddly into +the National Gallery for a farewell look, found you +and me together. They were then to get off a day or +two later. But they've not got off—they're not +getting off. When I see them—and I saw them this +morning—they have showy reasons. They do mean +to go, but they've postponed it." With which the +girl brought out: "They've postponed it for <i>you</i>." +He protested so far as a man might without fatuity, +since a protest was itself credulous; but Kate, as ever, +understood herself. "You've made Milly change her +mind. She wants not to miss you—though she wants +also not to show she wants you; which is why, as I +hinted a moment ago, she may consciously have hung +back to-night. She doesn't know when she may see +you again—she doesn't know she ever may. She +doesn't see the future. It has opened out before her +in these last weeks as a dark confused thing." +</p><p> +Densher wondered. "After the tremendous time +you've all been telling me she has had?" +</p><p> +"That's it. There's a shadow across it." +</p><p> +"The shadow, you consider, of some physical +break-up?" +</p><p> +"Some physical break-down. Nothing less. She's +scared. She has so much to lose. And she wants +more." +</p><p> +"Ah well," said Densher with a sudden strange +sense of discomfort, "couldn't one say to her that +she can't have everything?" +</p><p> +"No—for one wouldn't want to. She really," +Kate went on, "has been somebody here. Ask Aunt +Maud—you may think me prejudiced," the girl +oddly smiled. "Aunt Maud will tell you—the +world's before her. It has all come since you saw +her, and it's a pity you've missed it, for it certainly +would have amused you. She has really been a perfect +success—I mean of course so far as possible in +the scrap of time—and she has taken it like a perfect +angel. If you can imagine an angel with a thumping +bank-account you'll have the simplest expression of +the kind of thing. Her fortune's absolutely huge; +Aunt Maud has had all the facts, or enough of them, +in the last confidence, from 'Susie,' and Susie speaks +by book. Take them then, in the last confidence, +from <i>me</i>. There she is." Kate expressed above all +what it most came to. "It's open to her to make, you +see, the very greatest marriage. I assure you we're not +vulgar about her. Her possibilities are quite plain." +</p><p> +Densher showed he neither disbelieved nor grudged +them. "But what good then on earth can I do her?" +</p><p> +Well, she had it ready. "You can console her." +</p><p> +"And for what?" +</p><p> +"For all that, if she's stricken, she must see swept +away. I shouldn't care for her if she hadn't so +much," Kate very simply said. And then as it made +him laugh not quite happily: "I shouldn't trouble +about her if there were one thing she did have." The +girl spoke indeed with a noble compassion. "She has +nothing." +</p><p> +"Not all the young dukes?" +</p><p> +"Well we must see—see if anything can come of +them. She at any rate does love life. To have met a +person like you," Kate further explained, "is to have +felt you become, with all the other fine things, a part +of life. Oh she has you arranged!" +</p><p> +"<i>You</i> have, it strikes me, my dear"—and he +looked both detached and rueful. "Pray what am I +to do with the dukes?" +</p><p> +"Oh the dukes will be disappointed!" +</p><p> +"Then why shan't I be?" +</p><p> +"You'll have expected less," Kate wonderfully +smiled. "Besides, you <i>will</i> be. You'll have expected +enough for that." +</p><p> +"Yet it's what you want to let me in for?" +</p><p> +"I want," said the girl, "to make things pleasant +for her. I use, for the purpose, what I have. You're +what I have of most precious, and you're therefore +what I use most." +</p><p> +He looked at her long. "I wish I could use <i>you</i> a +little more." After which, as she continued to smile +at him, "Is it a bad case of lungs?" he asked. +</p><p> +Kate showed for a little as if she wished it might be. +"Not lungs, I think. Isn't consumption, taken in +time, now curable?" +</p><p> +"People are, no doubt, patched up." But he wondered. +"Do you mean she has something that's past +patching?" And before she could answer: "It's +really as if her appearance put her outside of such +things—being, in spite of her youth, that of a person +who has been through all it's conceivable she should +be exposed to. She affects one, I should say, as a +creature saved from a shipwreck. Such a creature +may surely, in these days, on the doctrine of chances, +go to sea again with confidence. She has <i>had</i> her +wreck—she has met her adventure." +</p><p> +"Oh I grant you her wreck!"—Kate was all response +so far. "But do let her have still her adventure. +There are wrecks that are not adventures." +</p><p> +"Well—if there be also adventures that are not +wrecks!" Densher in short was willing, but he came +back to his point. "What I mean is that she has +none of the effect—on one's nerves or whatever—of +an invalid." +</p><p> +Kate on her side did this justice. "No—that's +the beauty of her." +</p><p> +"The beauty—?" +</p><p> +"Yes, she's so wonderful. She won't show for that, +any more than your watch, when it's about to stop for +want of being wound up, gives you convenient notice +or shows as different from usual. She won't die, she +won't live, by inches. She won't smell, as it were, of +drugs. She won't taste, as it were, of medicine. No +one will know." +</p><p> +"Then what," he demanded, frankly mystified +now, "are we talking about? In what extraordinary +state <i>is</i> she?" +</p><p> +Kate went on as if, at this, making it out in a +fashion for herself. "I believe that if she's ill at all +she's very ill. I believe that if she's bad she's not a +<i>little</i> bad. I can't tell you why, but that's how I see +her. She'll really live or she'll really not. She'll +have it all or she'll miss it all. Now I don't think +she'll have it all." +</p><p> +Densher had followed this with his eyes upon her, +her own having thoughtfully wandered, and as if it +were more impressive than lucid. "You 'think' and +you 'don't think,' and yet you remain all the while +without an inkling of her complaint?" +</p><p> +"No, not without an inkling; but it's a matter in +which I don't want knowledge. She moreover herself +doesn't want one to want it: she has, as to what +may be preying upon her, a kind of ferocity of modesty, +a kind of—I don't know what to call it—intensity +of pride. And then and then—" But with +this she faltered. +</p><p> +"And then what?" +</p><p> +"I'm a brute about illness. I hate it. It's well for +you, my dear," Kate continued, "that you're as +sound as a bell." +</p><p> +"Thank you!" Densher laughed. "It's rather +good then for yourself too that you're as strong as the +sea." +</p><p> +She looked at him now a moment as for the selfish +gladness of their young immunities. It was all they +had together, but they had it at least without a flaw—each +had the beauty, the physical felicity, the personal +virtue, love and desire of the other. Yet it was +as if that very consciousness threw them back the +next moment into pity for the poor girl who had everything +else in the world, the great genial good they, +alas, didn't have, but failed on the other hand of +this. "How we're talking about her!" Kate compunctiously +sighed. But there were the facts. "From +illness I keep away." +</p><p> +"But you don't—since here you are, in spite of all +you say, in the midst of it." +</p><p> +"Ah I'm only watching—!" +</p><p> +"And putting me forward in your place? Thank +you!" +</p><p> +"Oh," said Kate, "I'm breaking you in. Let it +give you the measure of what I shall expect of you. +One can't begin too soon." +</p><p> +She drew away, as from the impression of a stir on +the balcony, the hand of which he had a minute before +possessed himself; and the warning brought him +back to attention. "You haven't even an idea if it's +a case for surgery?" +</p><p> +"I dare say it may be; that is that if it comes to +anything it may come to that. Of course she's in the +highest hands." +</p><p> +"The doctors are after her then?" +</p><p> +"She's after <i>them</i>—it's the same thing. I think +I'm free to say it now—she sees Sir Luke Strett." +</p><p> +It made him quickly wince. "Ah fifty thousand +knives!" Then after an instant: "One seems to +guess." +</p><p> +Yes, but she waved it away. "Don't guess. Only +do as I tell you." +</p><p> +For a moment now, in silence, he took it all in, +might have had it before him. "What you want of +me then is to make up to a sick girl." +</p><p> +"Ah but you admit yourself that she doesn't affect +you as sick. You understand moreover just how +much—and just how little." +</p><p> +"It's amazing," he presently answered, "what you +think I understand." +</p><p> +"Well, if you've brought me to it, my dear," she +returned, "that has been your way of breaking <i>me</i> in. +Besides which, so far as making up to her goes, plenty +of others will." +</p><p> +Densher for a little, under this suggestion, might +have been seeing their young friend on a pile of +cushions and in a perpetual tea-gown, amid flowers +and with drawn blinds, surrounded by the higher +nobility. "Others can follow their tastes. Besides, +others are free." +</p><p> +"But so are you, my dear!" +</p><p> +She had spoken with impatience, and her suddenly +quitting him had sharpened it; in spite of which he +kept his place, only looking up at her. "You're prodigious!" +</p><p> +"Of course I'm prodigious!"—and, as immediately +happened, she gave a further sign of it that he +fairly sat watching. The door from the lobby had, as +she spoke, been thrown open for a gentleman who, +immediately finding her within his view, advanced +to greet her before the announcement of his name +could reach her companion. Densher none the less +felt himself brought quickly into relation; Kate's welcome +to the visitor became almost precipitately an +appeal to her friend, who slowly rose to meet it. "I +don't know whether you know Lord Mark." And +then for the other party: "Mr. Merton Densher—who +has just come back from America." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said the other party while Densher said +nothing—occupied as he mainly was on the spot with +weighing the sound in question. He recognised it in +a moment as less imponderable than it might have +appeared, as having indeed positive claims. It +wasn't, that is, he knew, the "Oh!" of the idiot, +however great the superficial resemblance: it was that +of the clever, the accomplished man; it was the very +specialty of the speaker, and a deal of expensive training +and experience had gone to producing it. Densher +felt somehow that, as a thing of value accidentally +picked up, it would retain an interest of curiosity. +The three stood for a little together in an awkwardness +to which he was conscious of contributing his +share; Kate failing to ask Lord Mark to be seated, +but letting him know that he would find Mrs. Lowder, +with some others, on the balcony. +</p><p> +"Oh and Miss Theale I suppose?—as I seemed +to hear outside, from below, Mrs. Stringham's unmistakeable +voice." +</p><p> +"Yes, but Mrs. Stringham's alone. Milly's unwell," +the girl explained, "and was compelled to disappoint +us." +</p><p> +"Ah 'disappoint'—rather!" And, lingering a +little, he kept his eyes on Densher. "She isn't really +bad, I trust?" +</p><p> +Densher, after all he had heard, easily supposed +him interested in Milly; but he could imagine him +also interested in the young man with whom he had +found Kate engaged and whom he yet considered +without visible intelligence. That young man concluded +in a moment that he was doing what he wanted, +satisfying himself as to each. To this he was aided +by Kate, who produced a prompt: "Oh dear no; I +think not. I've just been reassuring Mr. Densher," +she added—"who's as concerned as the rest of us. +I've been calming his fears." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Lord Mark again—and again it was +just as good. That was for Densher, the latter could +see, or think he saw. And then for the others: "<i>My</i> +fears would want calming. We must take great care +of her. This way?" +</p><p> +She went with him a few steps, and while Densher, +hanging about, gave them frank attention, presently +paused again for some further colloquy. What passed +between them their observer lost, but she was presently +with him again, Lord Mark joining the rest. +Densher was by this time quite ready for her. "It's +<i>he</i> who's your aunt's man?" +</p><p> +"Oh immensely." +</p><p> +"I mean for <i>you.</i>" +</p><p> +"That's what I mean too," Kate smiled. "There +he is. Now you can judge." +</p><p> +"Judge of what?" +</p><p> +"Judge of him." +</p><p> +"Why should I judge of him?" Densher asked. +"I've nothing to do with him." +</p><p> +"Then why do you ask about him?" +</p><p> +"To judge of you—which is different." +</p><p> +Kate seemed for a little to look at the difference. +"To take the measure, do you mean, of my +danger?" +</p><p> +He hesitated; then he said: "I'm thinking, I dare +say, of Miss Theale's. How does your aunt reconcile +his interest in her—?" +</p><p> +"With his interest in me?" +</p><p> +"With her own interest in you," Densher said +while she reflected. "If that interest—Mrs. Lowder's—takes +the form of Lord Mark, hasn't he +rather to look out for the forms <i>he</i> takes?" +</p><p> +Kate seemed interested in the question, but "Oh +he takes them easily," she answered. "The beauty +is that she doesn't trust him." +</p><p> +"That Milly doesn't?" +</p><p> +"Yes—Milly either. But I mean Aunt Maud. +Not really." +</p><p> +Densher gave it his wonder. "Takes him to her +heart and yet thinks he cheats?" +</p><p> +"Yes," said Kate—"that's the way people are. +What they think of their enemies, goodness knows, +is bad enough; but I'm still more struck with what +they think of their friends. Milly's own state of mind, +however," she went on, "is lucky. That's Aunt +Maud's security, though she doesn't yet fully recognise +it—besides being Milly's own." +</p><p> +"You conceive it a real escape then not to care for +him?" +</p><p> +She shook her head in beautiful grave deprecation. +"You oughtn't to make me say too much. But I'm +glad I don't." +</p><p> +"Don't say too much?" +</p><p> +"Don't care for Lord Mark." +</p><p> +"Oh!" Densher answered with a sound like his +lordship's own. To which he added: "You absolutely +hold that that poor girl doesn't?" +</p><p> +"Ah you know what I hold about that poor girl!" +It had made her again impatient. +</p><p> +Yet he stuck a minute to the subject. "You +scarcely call him, I suppose, one of the dukes." +</p><p> +"Mercy, no—far from it. He's not, compared +with other possibilities, 'in' it. Milly, it's true," she +said, to be exact, "has no natural sense of social +values, doesn't in the least understand our differences +or know who's who or what's what." +</p><p> +"I see. That," Densher laughed, "is her reason +for liking <i>me</i>." +</p><p> +"Precisely. She doesn't resemble me," said Kate, +"who at least know what I lose." +</p><p> +Well, it had all risen for Densher to a considerable +interest. "And Aunt Maud—why shouldn't <i>she</i> +know? I mean that your friend there isn't really +anything. Does she suppose him of ducal value?" +</p><p> +"Scarcely; save in the sense of being uncle to a +duke. That's undeniably something. He's the best +moreover we can get." +</p><p> +"Oh, oh!" said Densher; and his doubt was not +all derisive. +</p><p> +"It isn't Lord Mark's grandeur," she went on +without heeding this; "because perhaps in the line of +that alone—as he has no money—more could be +done. But she's not a bit sordid; she only counts +with the sordidness of others. Besides, he's grand +enough, with a duke in his family and at the other +end of the string. <i>The</i> thing's his genius." +</p><p> +"And do you believe in that?" +</p><p> +"In Lord Mark's genius?" Kate, as if for a more +final opinion than had yet been asked of her, took a +moment to think. She balanced indeed so that one +would scarce have known what to expect; but she +came out in time with a very sufficient "Yes!" +</p><p> +"Political?" +</p><p> +"Universal. I don't know at least," she said, "what +else to call it when a man's able to make himself +without effort, without violence, without machinery of +any sort, so intensely felt. He has somehow an effect +without his being in any traceable way a cause." +</p><p> +"Ah but if the effect," said Densher with conscious +superficiality, "isn't agreeable—?" +</p><p> +"Oh but it is!" +</p><p> +"Not surely for every one." +</p><p> +"If you mean not for you," Kate returned, "you +may have reasons—and men don't count. Women +don't know if it's agreeable or not." +</p><p> +"Then there you are!" +</p><p> +"Yes, precisely—that takes, on his part, genius." +</p><p> +Densher stood before her as if he wondered what +everything she thus promptly, easily and above all +amusingly met him with, would have been found, +should it have come to an analysis, to "take." Something +suddenly, as if under a last determinant touch, +welled up in him and overflowed—the sense of his +good fortune and her variety, of the future she promised, +the interest she supplied. "All women but you +are stupid. How can I look at another? You're +different and different—and then you're different +again. No marvel Aunt Maud builds on you—except +that you're so much too good for what she builds +<i>for</i>. Even 'society' won't know how good for it you +are; it's too stupid, and you're beyond it. You'd +have to pull it uphill—it's you yourself who are at the +top. The women one meets—what are they but +books one has already read? You're a whole library +of the unknown, the uncut." He almost moaned, he +ached, from the depth of his content. "Upon my +word I've a subscription!" +</p><p> +She took it from him with her face again giving out +all it had in answer, and they remained once more +confronted and united in their essential wealth of life. +"It's you who draw me out. I exist in you. Not in +others." +</p><p> +It had been, however, as if the thrill of their association +itself pressed in him, as great felicities do, the +sharp spring of fear. "See here, you know: don't, +<i>don't</i>—!" +</p><p> +"Don't what?" +</p><p> +"Don't fail me. It would kill me." +</p><p> +She looked at him a minute with no response but +her eyes. "So you think you'll kill <i>me</i> in time to +prevent it?" She smiled, but he saw her the next +instant as smiling through tears; and the instant after +this she had got, in respect to the particular point, +quite off. She had come back to another, which was +one of her own; her own were so closely connected +that Densher's were at best but parenthetic. Still +she had a distance to go. "You do then see your +way?" She put it to him before they joined—as was +high time—the others. And she made him understand +she meant his way with Milly. +</p><p> +He had dropped a little in presence of the explanation; +then she had brought him up to a sort of recognition. +He could make out by this light something +of what he saw, but a dimness also there was, +undispelled since his return. "There's something +you must definitely tell me. If our friend knows that +all the while—?" +</p><p> +She came straight to his aid, formulating for him +his anxiety, though quite to smooth it down. "All the +while she and I here were growing intimate, you and +I were in unmentioned relation? If she knows that, +yes, she knows our relation must have involved your +writing to me." +</p><p> +"Then how could she suppose you weren't answering?" +</p><p> +"She doesn't suppose it." +</p><p> +"How then can she imagine you never named +her?" +</p><p> +"She doesn't. She knows now I did name her. +I've told her everything. She's in possession of +reasons that will perfectly do." +</p><p> +Still he just brooded. "She takes things from you +exactly as I take them?" +</p><p> +"Exactly as you take them." +</p><p> +"She's just such another victim?" +</p><p> +"Just such another. You're a pair." +</p><p> +"Then if anything happens," said Densher, "we +can console each other?" +</p><p> +"Ah something <i>may</i> indeed happen," she returned, +"if you'll only go straight!" +</p><p> +He watched the others an instant through the window. +"What do you mean by going straight?" +</p><p> +"Not worrying. Doing as you like. Try, as I've +told you before, and you'll see. You'll have me perfectly, +always, to refer to." +</p><p> +"Oh rather, I hope! But if she's going away?" +</p><p> +It pulled Kate up but a moment. "I'll bring her +back. There you are. You won't be able to say I +haven't made it smooth for you." +</p><p> +He faced it all, and certainly it was queer. But it +wasn't the queerness that after another minute was +uppermost. He was in a wondrous silken web, and it +was amusing. "You spoil me!" +</p><p> +He wasn't sure if Mrs. Lowder, who at this juncture +reappeared, had caught his word as it dropped +from him; probably not, he thought, her attention +being given to Mrs. Stringham, with whom she came +through and who was now, none too soon, taking +leave of her. They were followed by Lord Mark and +by the other men, but two or three things happened +before any dispersal of the company began. One of +these was that Kate found time to say to him with +furtive emphasis: "You must go now!" Another was +that she next addressed herself in all frankness to Lord +Mark, drew near to him with an almost reproachful +"Come and talk to <i>me!</i>"—a challenge resulting after +a minute for Densher in a consciousness of their installation +together in an out-of-the-way corner, though +not the same he himself had just occupied with her. +Still another was that Mrs. Stringham, in the random +intensity of her farewells, affected him as looking at +him with a small grave intimation, something into +which he afterwards read the meaning that if he had +happened to desire a few words with her after dinner +he would have found her ready. This impression was +naturally light, but it just left him with the sense of +something by his own act overlooked, unappreciated. +It gathered perhaps a slightly sharper shade from the +mild formality of her "Good-night, sir!" as she passed +him; a matter as to which there was now nothing more +to be done, thanks to the alertness of the young man +he by this time had appraised as even more harmless +than himself. This personage had forestalled him in +opening the door for her and was evidently—with a +view, Densher might have judged, to ulterior designs +on Milly—proposing to attend her to her carriage. +What further occurred was that Aunt Maud, having +released her, immediately had a word for himself. It +was an imperative "Wait a minute," by which she +both detained and dismissed him; she was particular +about her minute, but he hadn't yet given her, as +happened, a sign of withdrawal. +</p><p> +"Return to our little friend. You'll find her really +interesting." +</p><p> +"If you mean Miss Theale," he said, "I shall certainly +not forget her. But you must remember that, so +far as her 'interest' is concerned, I myself discovered, +I—as was said at dinner—invented her." +</p><p> +"Well, one seemed rather to gather that you hadn't +taken out the patent. Don't, I only mean, in the press +of other things, too much neglect her." +</p><p> +Affected, surprised by the coincidence of her appeal +with Kate's, he asked himself quickly if it mightn't +help him with her. He at any rate could but try. +"You're all looking after my manners. That's exactly, +you know, what Miss Croy has been saying to +me. <i>She</i> keeps me up—she has had so much to say +about them." +</p><p> +He found pleasure in being able to give his hostess +an account of his passage with Kate that, while quite +veracious, might be reassuring to herself. But Aunt +Maud, wonderfully and facing him straight, took it as +if her confidence were supplied with other props. If +she saw his intention in it she yet blinked neither with +doubt nor with acceptance; she only said imperturbably: +"Yes, she'll herself do anything for her friend; +so that she but preaches what she practises." +</p><p> +Densher really quite wondered if Aunt Maud knew +how far Kate's devotion went. He was moreover a +little puzzled by this special harmony; in face of which +he quickly asked himself if Mrs. Lowder had bethought +herself of the American girl as a distraction +for him, and if Kate's mastery of the subject were +therefore but an appearance addressed to her aunt. +What might really <i>become</i> in all this of the American +girl was therefore a question that, on the latter contingency, +would lose none of its sharpness. However, +questions could wait, and it was easy, so far as he +understood, to meet Mrs. Lowder. "It isn't a bit, all +the same, you know, that I resist. I find Miss Theale +charming." +</p><p> +Well, it was all she wanted. "Then don't miss a +chance." +</p><p> +"The only thing is," he went on, "that she's—naturally +now—leaving town and, as I take it, going +abroad." +</p><p> +Aunt Maud looked indeed an instant as if she herself +had been dealing with this difficulty. "She won't +go," she smiled in spite of it, "till she has seen you. +Moreover, when she does go—" She paused, leaving +him uncertain. But the next minute he was still more +at sea. "We shall go too." +</p><p> +He gave a smile that he himself took for slightly +strange. "And what good will that do <i>me?</i>" +</p><p> +"We shall be near them somewhere, and you'll +come out to us." +</p><p> +"Oh!" he said a little awkwardly. +</p><p> +"I'll see that you do. I mean I'll write to you." +</p><p> +"Ah thank you, thank you!" Merton Densher +laughed. She was indeed putting him on his honour, +and his honour winced a little at the use he rather +helplessly saw himself suffering her to believe she +could make of it. "There are all sorts of things," he +vaguely remarked, "to consider." +</p><p> +"No doubt. But there's above all the great thing." +</p><p> +"And pray what's that?" +</p><p> +"Why the importance of your not losing the occasion +of your life. I'm treating you handsomely, I'm +looking after it for you. I <i>can</i>—I can smooth your +path. She's charming, she's clever and she's good. +And her fortune's a real fortune." +</p><p> +Ah there she was, Aunt Maud! The pieces fell together +for him as he felt her thus buying him off, and +buying him—it would have been funny if it hadn't +been so grave—with Miss Theale's money. He ventured, +derisive, fairly to treat it as extravagant. "I'm +much obliged to you for the handsome offer—" +</p><p> +"Of what doesn't belong to me?" She wasn't +abashed. "I don't say it does—but there's no reason +it shouldn't to <i>you</i>. Mind you, moreover"—she +kept it up—"I'm not one who talks in the air. +And you owe me something—if you want to know +why." +</p><p> +Distinct he felt her pressure; he felt, given her basis, +her consistency; he even felt, to a degree that was immediately +to receive an odd confirmation, her truth. +Her truth, for that matter, was that she believed him +bribeable: a belief that for his own mind as well, +while they stood there, lighted up the impossible. +What then in this light did Kate believe him? But +that wasn't what he asked aloud. "Of course I know +I owe you thanks for a deal of kind treatment. Your +inviting me for instance to-night—!" +</p><p> +"Yes, my inviting you to-night's a part of it. But +you don't know," she added, "how far I've gone for +you." +</p><p> +He felt himself red and as if his honour were colouring +up; but he laughed again as he could. "I see +how far you're going." +</p><p> +"I'm the most honest woman in the world, but I've +nevertheless done for you what was necessary." And +then as her now quite sombre gravity only made him +stare: "To start you it <i>was</i> necessary. From <i>me</i> it has +the weight." He but continued to stare, and she met +his blankness with surprise. "Don't you understand +me? I've told the proper lie for you." Still he only +showed her his flushed strained smile; in spite of +which, speaking with force and as if he must with a +minute's reflexion see what she meant, she turned +away from him. "I depend upon you now to make +me right!" +</p><p> +The minute's reflexion he was of course more free +to take after he had left the house. He walked up the +Bayswater Road, but he stopped short, under the +murky stars, before the modern church, in the middle +of the square that, going eastward, opened out on +his left. He had had his brief stupidity, but now he +understood. She had guaranteed to Milly Theale +through Mrs. Stringham that Kate didn't care for +him. She had affirmed through the same source that +the attachment was only his. He made it out, he made +it out, and he could see what she meant by its starting +him. She had described Kate as merely compassionate, +so that Milly might be compassionate too. "Proper" +indeed it was, her lie—the very properest possible +and the most deeply, richly diplomatic. So Milly +was successfully deceived. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">V</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +To see her alone, the poor girl, he none the less +promptly felt, was to see her after all very much on +the old basis, the basis of his three visits in New York; +the new element, when once he was again face to face +with her, not really amounting to much more than a +recognition, with a little surprise, of the positive extent +of the old basis. Everything but that, everything +embarrassing fell away after he had been present five +minutes: it was in fact wonderful that their excellent, +their pleasant, their permitted and proper and harmless +American relation—the legitimacy of which he +could thus scarce express in names enough—should +seem so unperturbed by other matters. They had both +since then had great adventures—such an adventure +for him was his mental annexation of her country; +and it was now, for the moment, as if the greatest of +them all were this acquired consciousness of reasons +other than those that had already served. Densher +had asked for her, at her hotel, the day after Aunt +Maud's dinner, with a rich, that is with a highly +troubled, preconception of the part likely to be played +for him at present, in any contact with her, by Kate's +and Mrs. Lowder's so oddly conjoined and so really +superfluous attempts to make her interesting. She +had been interesting enough without them—that appeared +to-day to come back to him; and, admirable +and beautiful as was the charitable zeal of the two +ladies, it might easily have nipped in the bud the +germs of a friendship inevitably limited but still perfectly +open to him. What had happily averted the +need of his breaking off, what would as happily continue +to avert it, was his own good sense and good +humour, a certain spring of mind in him which ministered, +imagination aiding, to understandings and allowances +and which he had positively never felt such +ground as just now to rejoice in the possession of. +Many men—he practically made the reflexion—wouldn't +have taken the matter that way, would have +lost patience, finding the appeal in question irrational, +exorbitant; and, thereby making short work with it, +would have let it render any further acquaintance +with Miss Theale impossible. He had talked with +Kate of this young woman's being "sacrificed," and +that would have been one way, so far as he was concerned, +to sacrifice her. Such, however, had not been +the tune to which his at first bewildered view had, +since the night before, cleared itself up. It wasn't so +much that he failed of being the kind of man who +"chucked," for he knew himself as the kind of man +wise enough to mark the case in which chucking +might be the minor evil and the least cruelty. It was +that he liked too much every one concerned willingly +to show himself merely impracticable. He liked Kate, +goodness knew, and he also clearly enough liked +Mrs. Lowder. He liked in particular Milly herself; +and hadn't it come up for him the evening before +that he quite liked even Susan Shepherd? He had +never known himself so generally merciful. It was a +footing, at all events, whatever accounted for it, on +which he should surely be rather a muff not to manage +by one turn or another to escape disobliging. Should +he find he couldn't work it there would still be time +enough. The idea of working it crystallised before +him in such guise as not only to promise much interest—fairly, +in case of success, much enthusiasm; but +positively to impart to failure an appearance of barbarity. +</p><p> +Arriving thus in Brook Street both with the best +intentions and with a margin consciously left for +some primary awkwardness, he found his burden, to +his great relief, unexpectedly light. The awkwardness +involved in the responsibility so newly and so ingeniously +traced for him turned round on the spot to present +him another face. This was simply the face of his +old impression, which he now fully recovered—the +impression that American girls, when, rare case, they +had the attraction of Milly, were clearly the easiest +people in the world. Had what had happened been +that this specimen of the class was from the first so +committed to ease that nothing subsequent <i>could</i> ever +make her difficult? That affected him now as still +more probable than on the occasion of the hour or two +lately passed with her in Kate's society. Milly Theale +had recognised no complication, to Densher's view, +while bringing him, with his companion, from the +National Gallery and entertaining them at luncheon; +it was therefore scarce supposable that complications +had become so soon too much for her. His pretext for +presenting himself was fortunately of the best and +simplest; the least he could decently do, given their +happy acquaintance, was to call with an enquiry after +learning that she had been prevented by illness from +meeting him at dinner. And then there was the beautiful +accident of her other demonstration; he must at +any rate have given a sign as a sequel to the hospitality +he had shared with Kate. Well, he was giving one +now—such as it was; he was finding her, to begin +with, accessible, and very naturally and prettily glad +to see him. He had come, after luncheon, early, +though not so early but that she might already be out +if she were well enough; and she was well enough and +yet was still at home. He had an inner glimpse, with +this, of the comment Kate would have made on it; +it wasn't absent from his thought that Milly would +have been at home by <i>her</i> account because expecting, +after a talk with Mrs. Stringham, that a certain person +might turn up. He even—so pleasantly did things +go—enjoyed freedom of mind to welcome, on that +supposition, a fresh sign of the beautiful hypocrisy of +women. He went so far as to enjoy believing the girl +<i>might</i> have stayed in for him; it helped him to enjoy +her behaving as if she hadn't. She expressed, that is, +exactly the right degree of surprise; she didn't a bit +overdo it: the lesson of which was, perceptibly, that, +so far as his late lights had opened the door to any +want of the natural in their meetings, he might trust +her to take care of it for him as well as for herself. +She had begun this, admirably, on his entrance, +with her turning away from the table at which she +had apparently been engaged in letter-writing; it was +the very possibility of his betraying a concern for her +as one of the afflicted that she had within the first +minute conjured away. She was never, never—did +he understand?—to be one of the afflicted for him; +and the manner in which he understood it, something +of the answering pleasure that he couldn't help knowing +he showed, constituted, he was very soon after to +acknowledge, something like a start for intimacy. +When things like that could pass people had in truth +to be equally conscious of a relation. It soon made +one, at all events, when it didn't find one made. She +had let him ask—there had been time for that, his +allusion to her friend's explanatory arrival at Lancaster +Gate without her being inevitable; but she had +blown away, and quite as much with the look in her +eyes as with the smile on her lips, every ground for +anxiety and every chance for insistence. How was +she?—why she was as he thus saw her and as she +had reasons of her own, nobody else's business, for +desiring to appear. Kate's account of her as too proud +for pity, as fiercely shy about so personal a secret, +came back to him; so that he rejoiced he could take a +hint, especially when he wanted to. The question the +girl had quickly disposed of—"Oh it was nothing: +I'm all right, thank you!"—was one he was glad +enough to be able to banish. It wasn't at all, in spite +of the appeal Kate had made to him on it, his affair; +for his interest had been invoked in the name of compassion, +and the name of compassion was exactly +what he felt himself at the end of two minutes forbidden +so much as to whisper. He had been sent to +see her in order to be sorry for her, and how sorry he +might be, quite privately, he was yet to make out. +Didn't that signify, however, almost not at all?—inasmuch +as, whatever his upshot, he was never to +give her a glimpse of it. Thus the ground was unexpectedly +cleared; though it was not till a slightly +longer time had passed that he read clear, at first with +amusement and then with a strange shade of respect, +what had most operated. Extraordinarily, quite +amazingly, he began to see that if his pity hadn't had +to yield to still other things it would have had to yield +quite definitely to her own. That was the way the +case had turned round: he had made his visit to be +sorry for her, but he would repeat it—if he did repeat +it—in order that she might be sorry for him. +His situation made him, she judged—when once one +liked him—a subject for that degree of tenderness: +he felt this judgement in her, and felt it as something +he should really, in decency, in dignity, in common +honesty, have very soon to reckon with. +</p><p> +Odd enough was it certainly that the question +originally before him, the question placed there by +Kate, should so of a sudden find itself quite dislodged +by another. This other, it was easy to see, came +straight up with the fact of her beautiful delusion and +her wasted charity; the whole thing preparing for him +as pretty a case of conscience as he could have desired, +and one at the prospect of which he was already +wincing. If he was interesting it was because he was +unhappy; and if he was unhappy it was because his +passion for Kate had spent itself in vain; and if Kate +was indifferent, inexorable, it was because she had +left Milly in no doubt of it. That above all was what +came up for him—how clear an impression of this +attitude, how definite an account of his own failure, +Kate must have given her friend. His immediate +quarter of an hour there with the girl lighted up for +him almost luridly such an inference; it was almost as +if the other party to their remarkable understanding +had been with them as they talked, had been hovering +about, had dropped in to look after her work. The +value of the work affected him as different from the +moment he saw it so expressed in poor Milly. Since it +was false that he wasn't loved, so his right was quite +quenched to figure on that ground as important; and +if he didn't look out he should find himself appreciating +in a way quite at odds with straightness the +good faith of Milly's benevolence. <i>There</i> was the +place for scruples; there the need absolutely to mind +what he was about. If it wasn't proper for him to +enjoy consideration on a perfectly false footing, where +was the guarantee that, if he kept on, he mightn't +soon himself pretend to the grievance in order not +to miss the sweet? Consideration—from a charming +girl—was soothing on whatever theory; and it +didn't take him far to remember that he had himself +as yet done nothing deceptive. It was Kate's description +of him, his defeated state, it was none of his own; +his responsibility would begin, as he might say, only +with acting it out. The sharp point was, however, in +the difference between acting and not acting: this +difference in fact it was that made the case of conscience. +He saw it with a certain alarm rise before +him that everything was acting that was not speaking +the particular word. "If you like me because you +think <i>she</i> doesn't, it isn't a bit true: she <i>does</i> like me +awfully!"—that would have been the particular +word; which there were at the same time but too palpably +such difficulties about his uttering. Wouldn't +it be virtually as indelicate to challenge her as to +leave her deluded?—and this quite apart from the +exposure, so to speak, of Kate, as to whom it would +constitute a kind of betrayal. Kate's design was +something so extraordinarily special to Kate that he +felt himself shrink from the complications involved +in judging it. Not to give away the woman one loved, +but to back her up in her mistakes—once they had +gone a certain length—that was perhaps chief +among the inevitabilities of the abjection of love. +Loyalty was of course supremely prescribed in presence +of any design on her part, however roundabout, +to do one nothing but good. +</p><p> +Densher had quite to steady himself not to be awestruck +at the immensity of the good his own friend +must on all this evidence have wanted to do him. +Of one thing indeed meanwhile he was sure: Milly +Theale wouldn't herself precipitate his necessity of +intervention. She would absolutely never say to him: +"<i>Is</i> it so impossible she shall ever care for you seriously?"—without +which nothing could well be less +delicate than for him aggressively to set her right. +Kate would be free to do that if Kate, in some prudence, +some contrition, for some better reason in fine, +should revise her plan; but he asked himself what, +failing this, <i>he</i> could do that wouldn't be after all +more gross than doing nothing. This brought him +round again to the acceptance of the fact that the poor +girl liked him. She put it, for reasons of her own, on +a simple, a beautiful ground, a ground that already +supplied her with the pretext she required. The +ground was there, that is, in the impression she had +received, retained, cherished; the pretext, over and +above it, was the pretext for acting on it. That she +now believed as she did made her sure at last that she +might act; so that what Densher therefore would have +struck at would be the root, in her soul, of a pure +pleasure. It positively lifted its head and flowered, this +pure pleasure, while the young man now sat with her, +and there were things she seemed to say that took the +words out of his mouth. These were not all the things +she did say; they were rather what such things meant +in the light of what he knew. Her warning him for +instance off the question of how she was, the quick +brave little art with which she did that, represented to +his fancy a truth she didn't utter. "I'm well for <i>you</i>—that's +all you have to do with or need trouble +about: I shall never be anything so horrid as ill for +you. So there you are; worry about me, spare me, +please, as little as you can. Don't be afraid, in short, +to ignore my 'interesting' side. It isn't, you see, +even now while you sit here, that there aren't lots of +others. Only do <i>them</i> justice and we shall get on +beautifully." This was what was folded finely up in +her talk—all quite ostensibly about her impressions +and her intentions. She tried to put Densher again on +his American doings, but he wouldn't have that to-day. +As he thought of the way in which, the other +afternoon, before Kate, he had sat complacently +"jawing," he accused himself of excess, of having +overdone it, having made—at least apparently—more +of a "set" at their entertainer than he was at all +events then intending. He turned the tables, drawing +her out about London, about her vision of life there, +and only too glad to treat her as a person with whom +he could easily have other topics than her aches and +pains. He spoke to her above all of the evidence +offered him at Lancaster Gate that she had come but +to conquer; and when she had met this with full and +gay assent—"How could I help being the feature +of the season, the what-do-you-call-it, the theme of +every tongue?"—they fraternised freely over all that +had come and gone for each since their interrupted +encounter in New York. +</p><p> +At the same time, while many things in quick succession +came up for them, came up in particular for +Densher, nothing perhaps was just so sharp as the +odd influence of their present conditions on their view +of their past ones. It was as if they hadn't known +how "thick" they had originally become, as if, in a +manner, they had really fallen to remembrance of +more passages of intimacy than there had in fact at +the time quite been room for. They were in a relation +now so complicated, whether by what they said or by +what they didn't say, that it might have been seeking +to justify its speedy growth by reaching back to one of +those fabulous periods in which prosperous states +place their beginnings. He recalled what had been +said at Mrs. Lowder's about the steps and stages, in +people's careers, that absence caused one to miss, and +about the resulting frequent sense of meeting them +further on; which, with some other matters also recalled, +he took occasion to communicate to Milly. +The matters he couldn't mention mingled themselves +with those he did; so that it would doubtless have been +hard to say which of the two groups now played most +of a part. He was kept face to face with this young +lady by a force absolutely resident in their situation +and operating, for his nerves, with the swiftness of the +forces commonly regarded by sensitive persons as +beyond their control. The current thus determined +had positively become for him, by the time he had +been ten minutes in the room, something that, but +for the absurdity of comparing the very small with +the very great, he would freely have likened to the +rapids of Niagara. An uncriticised acquaintance between +a clever young man and a responsive young +woman could do nothing more, at the most, than go, +and his actual experiment went and went and went. +Nothing probably so conduced to make it go as the +marked circumstance that they had spoken all the +while not a word about Kate; and this in spite of the +fact that, if it were a question for them of what had +occurred in the past weeks, nothing had occurred +comparable to Kate's predominance. Densher had +but the night before appealed to her for instruction as +to what he must do about her, but he fairly winced to +find how little this came to. She had foretold him of +course how little; but it was a truth that looked different +when shown him by Milly. It proved to him that +the latter had in fact been dealt with, but it produced +in him the thought that Kate might perhaps again +conveniently be questioned. He would have liked to +speak to her before going further—to make sure she +really meant him to succeed quite so much. With all +the difference that, as we say, came up for him, it +came up afresh, naturally, that he might make his visit +brief and never renew it; yet the strangest thing of +all was that the argument against that issue would +have sprung precisely from the beautiful little eloquence +involved in Milly's avoidances. +</p><p> +Precipitate these well might be, since they emphasised +the fact that she was proceeding in the sense +of the assurances she had taken. Over the latter she +had visibly not hesitated, for hadn't they had the +merit of giving her a chance? Densher quite saw her, +felt her take it; the chance, neither more nor less, of +help rendered him according to her freedom. It was +what Kate had left her with: "Listen to him, <i>I?</i> +Never! So do as you like." What Milly "liked" was +to do, it thus appeared, as she was doing: our young +man's glimpse of which was just what would have +been for him not less a glimpse of the peculiar brutality +of shaking her off. The choice exhaled its shy +fragrance of heroism, for it was not aided by any +question of parting with Kate. She would be charming +to Kate as well as to Kate's adorer; she would +incur whatever pain could dwell for her in the sight—should +she continue to be exposed to the sight—of +the adorer thrown with the adored. It wouldn't +really have taken much more to make him wonder if +he hadn't before him one of those rare cases of exaltation—food +for fiction, food for poetry—in which a +man's fortune with the woman who doesn't care for +him is positively promoted by the woman who does. +It was as if Milly had said to herself: "Well, he can +at least meet her in my society, if that's anything to +him; so that my line can only be to make my society +attractive." She certainly couldn't have made a +different impression if she <i>had</i> so reasoned. All of +which, none the less, didn't prevent his soon enough +saying to her, quite as if she were to be whirled into +space: "And now, then, what becomes of you? Do +you begin to rush about on visits to country-houses?" +</p><p> +She disowned the idea with a headshake that, put +on what face she would, couldn't help betraying to +him something of her suppressed view of the possibility—ever, +ever perhaps—of any such proceedings. +They weren't at any rate for her now. "Dear no. +We go abroad for a few weeks somewhere of high +air. That has been before us for many days; we've +only been kept on by last necessities here. However, +everything's done and the wind's in our sails." +</p><p> +"May you scud then happily before it! But when," +he asked, "do you come back?" +</p><p> +She looked ever so vague; then as if to correct it: +"Oh when the wind turns. And what do you do with +your summer?" +</p><p> +"Ah I spend it in sordid toil. I drench it with mercenary +ink. My work in your country counts for play +as well. You see what's thought of the pleasure your +country can give. My holiday's over." +</p><p> +"I'm sorry you had to take it," said Milly, "at +such a different time from ours. If you could but +have worked while we've been working—" +</p><p> +"I might be playing while you play? Oh the distinction +isn't so great with me. There's a little of +each for me, of work and of play, in either. But you +and Mrs. Stringham, with Miss Croy and Mrs. Lowder—you +all," he went on, "have been given up, +like navvies or niggers, to real physical toil. Your +rest is something you've earned and you need. My +labour's comparatively light." +</p><p> +"Very true," she smiled; "but all the same I like +mine." +</p><p> +"It doesn't leave you 'done'?" +</p><p> +"Not a bit. I don't get tired when I'm interested. +Oh I could go far." +</p><p> +He bethought himself. "Then why don't you?—since +you've got here, as I learn, the whole place in +your pocket." +</p><p> +"Well, it's a kind of economy—I'm saving things +up. I've enjoyed so what you speak of—though +your account of it's fantastic—that I'm watching +over its future, that I can't help being anxious and +careful. I want—in the interest itself of what I've +had and may still have—not to make stupid mistakes. +The way not to make them is to get off again +to a distance and see the situation from there. I shall +keep it fresh," she wound up as if herself rather +pleased with the ingenuity of her statement—"I +shall keep it fresh, by that prudence, for my return." +</p><p> +"Ah then you <i>will</i> return? Can you promise one +that?" +</p><p> +Her face fairly lighted at his asking for a promise; +but she made as if bargaining a little. "Isn't London +rather awful in winter?" +</p><p> +He had been going to ask her if she meant for the +invalid; but he checked the infelicity of this and took +the enquiry as referring to social life. "No—I like it, +with one thing and another; it's less of a mob than +later on; and it would have for <i>us</i> the merit—should +you come here then—that we should probably see +more of you. So do reappear for us—if it isn't a +question of climate." +</p><p> +She looked at that a little graver. "If what isn't +a question—?" +</p><p> +"Why the determination of your movements. You +spoke just now of going somewhere for that." +</p><p> +"For better air?"—she remembered. "Oh yes, +one certainly wants to get out of London in August." +</p><p> +"Rather, of course!"—he fully understood. +"Though I'm glad you've hung on long enough for +me to catch you. Try us at any rate," he continued, +"once more." +</p><p> +"Whom do you mean by 'us'?" she presently +asked. +</p><p> +It pulled him up an instant—representing, as he +saw it might have seemed, an allusion to himself as +conjoined with Kate, whom he was proposing not to +mention any more than his hostess did. But the issue +was easy. "I mean all of us together, every one you'll +find ready to surround you with sympathy." +</p><p> +It made her, none the less, in her odd charming +way, challenge him afresh. "Why do you say sympathy?" +</p><p> +"Well, it's doubtless a pale word. What we <i>shall</i> +feel for you will be much nearer worship." +</p><p> +"As near then as you like!" With which at last +Kate's name was sounded. "The people I'd most +come back for are the people you know. I'd do it +for Mrs. Lowder, who has been beautifully kind +to me." +</p><p> +"So she has to <i>me</i>," said Densher. "I feel," he +added as she at first answered nothing, "that, quite +contrary to anything I originally expected, I've made +a good friend of her." +</p><p> +"I didn't expect it either—its turning out as it +has. But I did," said Milly, "with Kate. I shall +come back for her too. I'd do anything"—she kept +it up—"for Kate." +</p><p> +Looking at him as with conscious clearness while +she spoke, she might for the moment have effectively +laid a trap for whatever remains of the ideal straightness +in him were still able to pull themselves together +and operate. He was afterwards to say to himself that +something had at that moment hung for him by a +hair. "Oh I know what one would do for Kate!"—it +had hung for him by a hair to break out with that, +which he felt he had really been kept from by an element +in his consciousness stronger still. The proof +of the truth in question was precisely in his silence; +resisting the impulse to break out was what he was +doing for Kate. This at the time moreover came and +went quickly enough; he was trying the next minute +but to make Milly's allusion easy for herself. "Of +course I know what friends you are—and of course +I understand," he permitted himself to add, "any +amount of devotion to a person so charming. That's +the good turn then she'll do us all—I mean her +working for your return." +</p><p> +"Oh you don't know," said Milly, "how much I'm +really on her hands." +</p><p> +He could but accept the appearance of wondering +how much he might show he knew. "Ah she's very +masterful." +</p><p> +"She's great. Yet I don't say she bullies me." +</p><p> +"No—that's not the way. At any rate it isn't +hers," he smiled. He remembered, however, then +that an undue acquaintance with Kate's ways was +just what he mustn't show; and he pursued the subject +no further than to remark with a good intention +that had the further merit of representing a truth: +"I don't feel as if I knew her—really to call know." +</p><p> +"Well, if you come to that, I don't either!" she +laughed. The words gave him, as soon as they were +uttered, a sense of responsibility for his own; though +during a silence that ensued for a minute he had time +to recognise that his own contained after all no element +of falsity. Strange enough therefore was it that +he could go too far—if it <i>was</i> too far—without being +false. His observation was one he would perfectly +have made to Kate herself. And before he again +spoke, and before Milly did, he took time for more +still—for feeling how just here it was that he must +break short off if his mind was really made up not to +go further. It was as if he had been at a corner—and +fairly put there by his last speech; so that it depended +on him whether or no to turn it. The silence, if prolonged +but an instant, might even have given him a +sense of her waiting to see what he would do. It was +filled for them the next thing by the sound, rather +voluminous for the August afternoon, of the approach, +in the street below them, of heavy carriage-wheels and +of horses trained to "step." A rumble, a great shake, +a considerable effective clatter, had been apparently +succeeded by a pause at the door of the hotel, which +was in turn accompanied by a due display of diminished +prancing and stamping. "You've a visitor," +Densher laughed, "and it must be at least an ambassador." +</p><p> +"It's only my own carriage; it does that—isn't it +wonderful?—every day. But we find it, Mrs. Stringham +and I, in the innocence of our hearts, very amusing." +She had got up, as she spoke, to assure herself +of what she said; and at the end of a few steps they +were together on the balcony and looking down at her +waiting chariot, which made indeed a brave show. +"Is it very awful?" +</p><p> +It was to Densher's eyes—save for its absurd +heaviness—only pleasantly pompous. "It seems to +me delightfully rococo. But how do I know? You're +mistress of these things, in contact with the highest +wisdom. You occupy a position, moreover, thanks to +which your carriage—well, by this time, in the eye of +London, also occupies one." But she was going out, +and he mustn't stand in her way. What had happened +the next minute was first that she had denied she was +going out, so that he might prolong his stay; and +second that she had said she would go out with pleasure +if he would like to drive—that in fact there were +always things to do, that there had been a question +for her to-day of several in particular, and that this in +short was why the carriage had been ordered so early. +They perceived, as she said these things, that an enquirer +had presented himself, and, coming back, they +found Milly's servant announcing the carriage and +prepared to accompany her. This appeared to have +for her the effect of settling the matter—on the basis, +that is, of Densher's happy response. Densher's +happy response, however, had as yet hung fire, the +process we have described in him operating by this +time with extreme intensity. The system of not pulling +up, not breaking off, had already brought him +headlong, he seemed to feel, to where they actually +stood; and just now it was, with a vengeance, that he +must do either one thing or the other. He had been +waiting for some moments, which probably seemed to +him longer than they were; this was because he was +anxiously watching himself wait. He couldn't keep +that up for ever; and since one thing or the other was +what he must do, it was for the other that he presently +became conscious of having decided. If he had been +drifting it settled itself in the manner of a bump, of +considerable violence, against a firm object in the +stream. "Oh yes; I'll go with you with pleasure. It's +a charming idea." +</p><p> +She gave no look to thank him—she rather looked +away; she only said at once to her servant, "In ten +minutes"; and then to her visitor, as the man went +out, "We'll go somewhere—I shall like that. But +I must ask of you time—as little as possible—to get +ready." She looked over the room to provide for him, +keep him there. "There are books and things—plenty; +and I dress very quickly." He caught her +eyes only as she went, on which he thought them +pretty and touching. +</p><p> +Why especially touching at that instant he could +certainly scarce have said; it was involved, it was lost +in the sense of her wishing to oblige him. Clearly +what had occurred was her having wished it so that +she had made him simply wish, in civil acknowledgement, +to oblige <i>her;</i> which he had now fully done by +turning his corner. He was quite round it, his corner, +by the time the door had closed upon her and he stood +there alone. Alone he remained for three minutes +more—remained with several very living little matters +to think about. One of these was the phenomenon—typical, +highly American, he would have said—of +Milly's extreme spontaneity. It was perhaps rather +as if he had sought refuge—refuge from another +question—in the almost exclusive contemplation of +this. Yet this, in its way, led him nowhere; not even to +a sound generalisation about American girls. It was +spontaneous for his young friend to have asked him to +drive with her alone—since she hadn't mentioned +her companion; but she struck him after all as no +more advanced in doing it than Kate, for instance, who +wasn't an American girl, might have struck him in +not doing it. Besides, Kate <i>would</i> have done it, +though Kate wasn't at all, in the same sense as Milly, +spontaneous. And then in addition Kate <i>had</i> done it—or +things very like it. Furthermore he was engaged +to Kate—even if his ostensibly not being put +her public freedom on other grounds. On all grounds, +at any rate, the relation between Kate and freedom, +between freedom and Kate, was a different one from +any he could associate or cultivate, as to anything, +with the girl who had just left him to prepare to give +herself up to him. It had never struck him before, +and he moved about the room while he thought of it, +touching none of the books placed at his disposal. +Milly was forward, as might be said, but not advanced; +whereas Kate was backward—backward still, +comparatively, as an English girl—and yet advanced +in a high degree. However—though this +didn't straighten it out—Kate was of course two or +three years older; which at their time of life considerably +counted. +</p><p> +Thus ingeniously discriminating, Densher continued +slowly to wander; yet without keeping at bay for +long the sense of having rounded his corner. He +had so rounded it that he felt himself lose even +the option of taking advantage of Milly's absence to +retrace his steps. If he might have turned tail, vulgarly +speaking, five minutes before, he couldn't turn +tail now; he must simply wait there with his consciousness +charged to the brim. Quickly enough +moreover that issue was closed from without; in the +course of three minutes more Miss Theale's servant +had returned. He preceded a visitor whom he had +met, obviously, at the foot of the stairs and whom, +throwing open the door, he loudly announced as Miss +Croy. Kate, on following him in, stopped short at +sight of Densher—only, after an instant, as the +young man saw with free amusement, not from surprise +and still less from discomfiture. Densher immediately +gave his explanation—Miss Theale had gone +to prepare to drive—on receipt of which the servant +effaced himself. +</p><p> +"And you're going with her?" Kate asked. +</p><p> +"Yes—with your approval; which I've taken, as +you see, for granted." +</p><p> +"Oh," she laughed, "my approval's complete!" +She was thoroughly consistent and handsome about +it. +</p><p> +"What I mean is of course," he went on—for he +was sensibly affected by her gaiety—"at your so +lively instigation." +</p><p> +She had looked about the room—she might have +been vaguely looking for signs of the duration, of the +character of his visit, a momentary aid in taking a +decision. "Well, instigation then, as much as you +like." She treated it as pleasant, the success of her +plea with him; she made a fresh joke of this direct +impression of it. "So much so as that? Do you know +I think I won't wait?" +</p><p> +"Not to see her—after coming?" +</p><p> +"Well, with you in the field—! I came for news of +her, but she must be all right. If she <i>is</i>—" +</p><p> +But he took her straight up. "Ah how do I know?" +He was moved to say more. "It's not I who am responsible +for her, my dear. It seems to me it's you." +She struck him as making light of a matter that had +been costing him sundry qualms; so that they couldn't +both be quite just. Either she was too easy or he had +been too anxious. He didn't want at all events to feel +a fool for that. "I'm doing nothing—and shall not, +I assure you, do anything but what I'm told." +</p><p> +Their eyes met with some intensity over the emphasis +he had given his words; and he had taken it +from her the next moment that he really needn't get +into a state. What in the world was the matter? She +asked it, with interest, for all answer. "Isn't she +better—if she's able to see you?" +</p><p> +"She assures me she's in perfect health." +</p><p> +Kate's interest grew. "I knew she would." On +which she added: "It won't have been really for illness +that she stayed away last night." +</p><p> +"For what then?" +</p><p> +"Well—for nervousness." +</p><p> +"Nervousness about what?" +</p><p> +"Oh you know!" She spoke with a hint of impatience, +smiling however the next moment. "I've +told you that." +</p><p> +He looked at her to recover in her face what she +had told him; then it was as if what he saw there +prompted him to say: "What have you told <i>her?</i>" +</p><p> +She gave him her controlled smile, and it was all as +if they remembered where they were, liable to surprise, +talking with softened voices, even stretching +their opportunity, by such talk, beyond a quite right +feeling. Milly's room would be close at hand, and +yet they were saying things—! For a moment, none +the less, they kept it up. "Ask <i>her</i>, if you like; you're +free—she'll tell you. Act as you think best; don't +trouble about what you think I may or mayn't have +told. I'm all right with her," said Kate. "So there +you are." +</p><p> +"If you mean <i>here</i> I am," he answered, "it's unmistakeable. +If you also mean that her believing in +you is all I have to do with you're so far right as that +she certainly does believe in you." +</p><p> +"Well then take example by her." +</p><p> +"She's really doing it for you," Densher continued. +"She's driving me out for you." +</p><p> +"In that case," said Kate with her soft tranquillity, +"you can do it a little for <i>her</i>. I'm not afraid," +she smiled. +</p><p> +He stood before her a moment, taking in again the +face she put on it and affected again, as he had already +so often been, by more things in this face and +in her whole person and presence than he was, to his +relief, obliged to find words for. It wasn't, under +such impressions, a question of words. "I do nothing +for any one in the world but you. But for you I'll do +anything." +</p><p> +"Good, good," said Kate. "That's how I like you." +</p><p> +He waited again an instant. "Then you swear to +it?" +</p><p> +"To 'it'? To what?" +</p><p> +"Why that you do 'like' me. Since it's all for that, +you know, that I'm letting you do—well, God knows +what with me." +</p><p> +She gave at this, with a stare, a disheartened gesture—the +sense of which she immediately further expressed. +"If you don't believe in me then, after all, +hadn't you better break off before you've gone +further?" +</p><p> +"Break off with you?" +</p><p> +"Break off with Milly. You might go now," she +said, "and I'll stay and explain to her why it is." +</p><p> +He wondered—as if it struck him. "What would +you say?" +</p><p> +"Why that you find you can't stand her, and that +there's nothing for me but to bear with you as I best +may." +</p><p> +He considered of this. "How much do you abuse +me to her?" +</p><p> +"Exactly enough. As much as you see by her attitude." +</p><p> +Again he thought. "It doesn't seem to me I ought +to mind her attitude." +</p><p> +"Well then, just as you like. I'll stay and do my +best for you." +</p><p> +He saw she was sincere, was really giving him a +chance; and that of itself made things clearer. The +feeling of how far he had gone came back to him not +in repentance, but in this very vision of an escape; +and it Was not of what he had done, but of what Kate +offered, that he now weighed the consequence. +"Won't it make her—her not finding me here—be +rather more sure there's something between us?" +</p><p> +Kate thought. "Oh I don't know. It will of course +greatly upset her. But you needn't trouble about +that. She won't die of it." +</p><p> +"Do you mean she <i>will?</i>" Densher presently asked. +</p><p> +"Don't put me questions when you don't believe +what I say. You make too many conditions." +</p><p> +She spoke now with a shade of rational weariness +that made the want of pliancy, the failure to oblige +her, look poor and ugly; so that what it suddenly +came back to for him was his deficiency in the things +a man of any taste, so engaged, so enlisted, would +have liked to make sure of being able to show—imagination, +tact, positively even humour. The circumstance +is doubtless odd, but the truth is none the +less that the speculation uppermost with him at this +juncture was: "What if I should begin to bore this +creature?" And that, within a few seconds, had +translated itself. "If you'll swear again you love +me—!" +</p><p> +She looked about, at door and window, as if he +were asking for more than he said. "Here? There's +nothing between us here," Kate smiled. +</p><p> +"Oh <i>isn't</i> there?" Her smile itself, with this, had +so settled something for him that he had come to her +pleadingly and holding out his hands, which she immediately +seized with her own as if both to check him +and to keep him. It was by keeping him thus for a +minute that she did check him; she held him long +enough, while, with their eyes deeply meeting, they +waited in silence for him to recover himself and renew +his discretion. He coloured as with a return of the +sense of where they were, and that gave her precisely +one of her usual victories, which immediately took +further form. By the time he had dropped her hands +he had again taken hold, as it were, of Milly's. It was +not at any rate with Milly he had broken. "I'll do all +you wish," he declared as if to acknowledge the acceptance +of his condition that he had practically, +after all, drawn from her—a declaration on which +she then, recurring to her first idea, promptly acted. +</p><p> +"If you <i>are</i> as good as that I go. You'll tell her +that, finding you with her, I wouldn't wait. Say that, +you know, from yourself. She'll understand." +</p><p> +She had reached the door with it—she was full of +decision; but he had before she left him one more +doubt. "I don't see how she can understand enough, +you know, without understanding too much." +</p><p> +"You don't need to see." +</p><p> +He required then a last injunction. "I must simply +go it blind?" +</p><p> +"You must simply be kind to her." +</p><p> +"And leave the rest to you?" +</p><p> +"Leave the rest to <i>her</i>," said Kate disappearing. +</p><p> +It came back then afresh to that, as it had come +before. Milly, three minutes after Kate had gone, +returned in her array—her big black hat, so little +superstitiously in the fashion, her fine black garments +throughout, the swathing of her throat, which Densher +vaguely took for an infinite number of yards of +priceless lace, and which, its folded fabric kept in +place by heavy rows of pearls, hung down to her feet +like the stole of a priestess. He spoke to her at once +of their friend's visit and flight. "She hadn't known +she'd find me," he said—and said at present without +difficulty. He had so rounded his corner that it +wasn't a question of a word more or less. +</p><p> +She took this account of the matter as quite sufficient; +she glossed over whatever might be awkward. +"I'm sorry—but I of course often see <i>her</i>." He felt +the discrimination in his favour and how it justified +Kate. This was Milly's tone when the matter was +left to her. Well, it should now be wholly left. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">BOOK SEVENTH</h2> +<br> +<h2 align="center">I</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +When Kate and Densher abandoned her to Mrs. +Stringham on the day of her meeting them together +and bringing them to luncheon, Milly, face to face +with that companion, had had one of those moments +in which the warned, the anxious fighter of the battle +of life, as if once again feeling for the sword at his +side, carries his hand straight to the quarter of his +courage. She laid hers firmly on her heart, and the +two women stood there showing each other a strange +front. Susan Shepherd had received their great doctor's +visit, which had been clearly no small affair for +her; but Milly had since then, with insistence, kept +in place, against communication and betrayal, as she +now practically confessed, the barrier of their invited +guests. "You've been too dear. With what I see +you're full of you treated them beautifully. <i>Isn't</i> +Kate charming when she wants to be?" +</p><p> +Poor Susie's expression, contending at first, as in +a high fine spasm, with different dangers, had now +quite let itself go. She had to make an effort to reach +a point in space already so remote. "Miss Croy? Oh +she was pleasant and clever. She knew," Mrs. Stringham +added. "She knew." +</p><p> +Milly braced herself—but conscious above all, at +the moment, of a high compassion for her mate. She +made her out as struggling—struggling in all her +nature against the betrayal of pity, which in itself, +given her nature, could only be a torment. Milly +gathered from the struggle how much there was of +the pity, and how therefore it was both in her tenderness +and in her conscience that Mrs. Stringham suffered. +Wonderful and beautiful it was that this impression +instantly steadied the girl. Ruefully asking +herself on what basis of ease, with the drop of their +barrier, they were to find themselves together, she felt +the question met with a relief that was almost joy. +The basis, the inevitable basis, was that she was going +to be sorry for Susie, who, to all appearance, had been +condemned in so much more uncomfortable a manner +to be sorry for <i>her</i>. Mrs. Stringham's sorrow +would hurt Mrs. Stringham, but how could her own +ever hurt? She had, the poor girl, at all events, on the +spot, five minutes of exaltation in which she turned +the tables on her friend with a pass of the hand, a gesture +of an energy that made a wind in the air. "Kate +knew," she asked, "that you were full of Sir Luke +Strett?" +</p><p> +"She spoke of nothing, but she was gentle and nice; +she seemed to want to help me through." Which the +good lady had no sooner said, however, than she almost +tragically gasped at herself. She glared at Milly +with a pretended pluck. "What I mean is that she +saw one had been taken up with something. When I +say she knows I should say she's a person who +guesses." And her grimace was also, on its side, +heroic. "But <i>she</i> doesn't matter, Milly." +</p><p> +The girl felt she by this time could face anything. +"Nobody matters, Susie. Nobody." Which her next +words, however, rather contradicted. "Did he take it +ill that I wasn't here to see him? Wasn't it really +just what he wanted—to have it out, so much more +simply, with <i>you</i>?" +</p><p> +"We didn't have anything 'out,' Milly," Mrs. +Stringham delicately quavered. +</p><p> +"Didn't he awfully like you," Milly went on, +"and didn't he think you the most charming person +I could possibly have referred him to for an account +of me? Didn't you hit it off tremendously together +and in fact fall quite in love, so that it will really be +a great advantage for you to have me as a common +ground? You're going to make, I can see, no end of +a good thing of me." +</p><p> +"My own child, my own child!" Mrs. Stringham +pleadingly murmured; yet showing as she did so that +she feared the effect even of deprecation. +</p><p> +"Isn't he beautiful and good too himself?—altogether, +whatever he may say, a lovely acquaintance +to have made? You're just the right people for me—I +see it now; and do you know what, between you, +you must do?" Then as Susie still but stared, wonderstruck +and holding herself: "You must simply +see me through. Any way you choose. Make it out +together. I, on my side, will be beautiful too, and +we'll be—the three of us, with whatever others, oh +as many as the case requires, any one you like!—a +sight for the gods. I'll be as easy for you as carrying +a feather." Susie took it for a moment in such silence +that her young friend almost saw her—and scarcely +withheld the observation—as taking it for "a part of +the disease." This accordingly helped Milly to be, as +she judged, definite and wise. "He's at any rate +awfully interesting, isn't he?—which is so much to +the good. We haven't at least—as we might have, +with the way we tumbled into it—got hold of one of +the dreary." +</p><p> +"Interesting, dearest?"—Mrs. Stringham felt +her feet firmer. "I don't know if he's interesting or +not; but I do know, my own," she continued to +quaver, "that he's just as much interested as you +could possibly desire." +</p><p> +"Certainly—that's it. Like all the world." +</p><p> +"No, my precious, not like all the world. Very +much more deeply and intelligently." +</p><p> +"Ah there you are!" Milly laughed. "That's the +way, Susie, I want you. So 'buck' up, my dear. +We'll have beautiful times with him. Don't worry." +</p><p> +"I'm not worrying, Milly." And poor Susie's face +registered the sublimity of her lie. +</p><p> +It was at this that, too sharply penetrated, her +companion went to her, met by her with an embrace +in which things were said that exceeded speech. Each +held and clasped the other as if to console her for this +unnamed woe, the woe for Mrs. Stringham of learning +the torment of helplessness, the woe for Milly +of having <i>her</i>, at such a time, to think of. Milly's +assumption was immense, and the difficulty for her +friend was that of not being able to gainsay it without +bringing it more to the proof than tenderness and +vagueness could permit. Nothing in fact came to the +proof between them but that they could thus cling +together—except indeed that, as we have indicated, +the pledge of protection and support was all the +younger woman's own. "I don't ask you," she presently +said, "what he told you for yourself, nor what +he told you to tell me, nor how he took it, really, that +I had left him to you, nor what passed between you +about me in any way. It wasn't to get that out of you +that I took my means to make sure of your meeting +freely—for there are things I don't want to know. I +shall see him again and again and shall know more +than enough. All I do want is that you shall see me +through on <i>his</i> basis, whatever it is; which it's enough—for +the purpose—that you yourself should know: +that is with him to show you how. I'll make it charming +for you—that's what I mean; I'll keep you up +to it in such a way that half the time you won't know +you're doing it. And for that you're to rest upon me. +There. It's understood. We keep each other going, +and you may absolutely feel of me that I shan't break +down. So, with the way you haven't so much as a +dig of the elbow to fear, how could you be safer?" +</p><p> +"He told me I <i>can</i> help you—of course he told +me that," Susie, on her side, eagerly contended. +"Why shouldn't he, and for what else have I come +out with you? But he told me nothing dreadful—nothing, +nothing, nothing," the poor lady passionately +protested. "Only that you must do as you like +and as he tells you—which <i>is</i> just simply to do as +you like." +</p><p> +"I must keep in sight of him. I must from time to +time go to him. But that's of course doing as I like. +It's lucky," Milly smiled, "that I like going to him." +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham was here in agreement; she gave +a clutch at the account of their situation that most +showed it as workable. "That's what <i>will</i> be charming +for me, and what I'm sure he really wants of me—to +help you to do as you like." +</p><p> +"And also a little, won't it be," Milly laughed, +"to save me from the consequences? Of course," +she added, "there must first <i>be</i> things I like." +</p><p> +"Oh I think you'll find some," Mrs. Stringham +more bravely said. "I think there <i>are</i> some—as for +instance just this one. I mean," she explained, +"really having us so." +</p><p> +Milly thought. "Just as if I wanted you comfortable +about <i>him</i>, and him the same about you? Yes—I +shall get the good of it." +</p><p> +Susan Shepherd appeared to wander from this +into a slight confusion. "Which of them are you talking +of?" +</p><p> +Milly wondered an instant—then had a light. +"I'm not talking of Mr. Densher." With which +moreover she showed amusement. "Though if you +can be comfortable about Mr. Densher too so much +the better." +</p><p> +"Oh you meant Sir Luke Strett? Certainly he's +a fine type. Do you know," Susie continued, "whom +he reminds me of? Of <i>our</i> great man—Dr. Buttrick +of Boston." +</p><p> +Milly recognised Dr. Buttrick of Boston, but she +dropped him after a tributary pause. "What do you +think, now that you've seen him, of Mr. Densher?" +</p><p> +It was not till after consideration, with her eyes +fixed on her friend's, that Susie produced her answer. +"I think he's very handsome." +</p><p> +Milly remained smiling at her, though putting on +a little the manner of a teacher with a pupil. "Well, +that will do for the first time. I <i>have</i> done," she went +on, "what I wanted." +</p><p> +"Then that's all <i>we</i> want. You see there are plenty +of things." +</p><p> +Milly shook her head for the "plenty." "The best +is not to know—that includes them all. I don't—I +don't know. Nothing about anything—except that +you're <i>with</i> me. Remember that, please. There +won't be anything that, on my side, for you, I shall +forget. So it's all right." +</p><p> +The effect of it by this time was fairly, as intended, +to sustain Susie, who dropped in spite of herself into +the reassuring. "Most certainly it's all right. I think +you ought to understand that he sees no reason—" +</p><p> +"Why I shouldn't have a grand long life?" Milly +had taken it straight up, as to understand it and for +a moment consider it. But she disposed of it otherwise. +"Oh of course I know <i>that</i>." She spoke as if +her friend's point were small. +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham tried to enlarge it. "Well, what +I mean is that he didn't say to me anything that he +hasn't said to yourself." +</p><p> +"Really?—I would in his place!" She might +have been disappointed, but she had her good humour. +"He tells me to <i>live</i>"—and she oddly limited +the word. +</p><p> +It left Susie a little at sea. "Then what do you +want more?" +</p><p> +"My dear," the girl presently said, "I don't 'want,' +as I assure you, anything. Still," she added, "I <i>am</i> +living. Oh yes, I'm living." +</p><p> +It put them again face to face, but it had wound +Mrs. Stringham up. "So am I then, you'll see!"—she +spoke with the note of her recovery. Yet it was +her wisdom now—meaning by it as much as she did—not +to say more than that. She had risen by Milly's +aid to a certain command of what was before them; +the ten minutes of their talk had in fact made her +more distinctly aware of the presence in her mind of +a new idea. It was really perhaps an old idea with a +new value; it had at all events begun during the last +hour, though at first but feebly, to shine with a special +light. That was because in the morning darkness +had so suddenly descended—a sufficient shade of +night to bring out the power of a star. The dusk +might be thick yet, but the sky had comparatively +cleared; and Susan Shepherd's star from this time +on continued to twinkle for her. It was for the moment, +after her passage with Milly, the one spark +left in the heavens. She recognised, as she continued +to watch it, that it had really been set there by Sir +Luke Strett's visit and that the impressions immediately +following had done no more than fix it. Milly's +reappearance with Mr. Densher at her heels—or, so +oddly perhaps, at Miss Croy's heels, Miss Croy being +at Milly's—had contributed to this effect, though it +was only with the lapse of the greater obscurity that +Susie made that out. The obscurity had reigned during +the hour of their friends' visit, faintly clearing indeed +while, in one of the rooms, Kate Croy's remarkable +advance to her intensified the fact that Milly and +the young man were conjoined in the other. If it +hadn't acquired on the spot all the intensity of which +it was capable, this was because the poor lady still sat +in her primary gloom, the gloom the great benignant +doctor had practically left behind him. +</p><p> +The intensity the circumstance in question <i>might</i> +wear to the informed imagination would have been +sufficiently revealed for us, no doubt—and with other +things to our purpose—in two or three of those confidential +passages with Mrs. Lowder that she now +permitted herself. She hadn't yet been so glad that +she believed in her old friend; for if she hadn't had, +at such a pass, somebody or other to believe in she +should certainly have stumbled by the way. Discretion +had ceased to consist of silence; silence was gross +and thick, whereas wisdom should taper, however +tremulously, to a point. She betook herself to Lancaster +Gate the morning after the colloquy just noted; +and there, in Maud Manningham's own sanctum, +she gradually found relief in giving an account of +herself. An account of herself was one of the things +that she had long been in the habit of expecting herself +regularly to give—the regularity depending of +course much on such tests of merit as might, by laws +beyond her control, rise in her path. She never spared +herself in short a proper sharpness of conception of +how she had behaved, and it was a statement that she +for the most part found herself able to make. What +had happened at present was that nothing, as she felt, +was left of her to report to; she was all too sunk in the +inevitable and the abysmal. To give an account of +herself she must give it to somebody else, and her first +instalment of it to her hostess was that she must please +let her cry. She couldn't cry, with Milly in observation, +at the hotel, which she had accordingly left for +that purpose; and the power happily came to her with +the good opportunity. She cried and cried at first—she +confined herself to that; it was for the time the +best statement of her business. Mrs. Lowder moreover +intelligently took it as such, though knocking off +a note or two more, as she said, while Susie sat near +her table. She could resist the contagion of tears, but +her patience did justice to her visitor's most vivid +plea for it. "I shall never be able, you know, to cry +again—at least not ever with <i>her;</i> so I must take it +out when I can. Even if she does herself it won't be +for me to give away; for what would that be but a +confession of despair? I'm not with her for that—I'm +with her to be regularly sublime. Besides, Milly +won't cry herself." +</p><p> +"I'm sure I hope," said Mrs. Lowder, "that she +won't have occasion to." +</p><p> +"She won't even if she does have occasion. She +won't shed a tear. There's something that will prevent +her." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Mrs. Lowder. +</p><p> +"Yes, her pride," Mrs. Stringham explained in +spite of her friend's doubt, and it was with this that +her communication took consistent form. It had +never been pride, Maud Manningham had hinted, +that kept <i>her</i> from crying when other things made for +it; it had only been that these same things, at such +times, made still more for business, arrangements, +correspondence, the ringing of bells, the marshalling +of servants, the taking of decisions. "I might be crying +now," she said, "if I weren't writing letters"—and +this quite without harshness for her anxious companion, +to whom she allowed just the administrative +margin for difference. She had interrupted her no +more than she would have interrupted the piano-tuner. +It gave poor Susie time; and when Mrs. Lowder, +to save appearances and catch the post, had, +with her addressed and stamped notes, met at the +door of the room the footman summoned by the pressure +of a knob, the facts of the case were sufficiently +ready for her. It took but two or three, however, +given their importance, to lay the ground for the great +one—Mrs. Stringham's interview of the day before +with Sir Luke, who had wished to see her about +Milly. +</p><p> +"He had wished it himself?" +</p><p> +"I think he was glad of it. Clearly indeed he was. +He stayed a quarter of an hour. I could see that for +<i>him</i> it was long. He's interested," said Mrs. Stringham. +</p><p> +"Do you mean in her case?" +</p><p> +"He says it <i>isn't</i> a case." +</p><p> +"What then is it?" +</p><p> +"It isn't, at least," Mrs. Stringham explained, +"the case she believed it to be—thought it at any +rate <i>might</i> be—when, without my knowledge, she +went to see him. She went because there was something +she was afraid of, and he examined her thoroughly—he +has made sure. She's wrong—she +hasn't what she thought." +</p><p> +"And what did she think?" Mrs. Lowder demanded. +</p><p> +"He didn't tell me." +</p><p> +"And you didn't ask?" +</p><p> +"I asked nothing," said poor Susie—"I only took +what he gave me. He gave me no more than he had +to—he was beautiful," she went on. "He <i>is</i>, thank +God, interested." +</p><p> +"He must have been interested in <i>you</i>, dear," +Maud Manningham observed with kindness. +</p><p> +Her visitor met it with candour. "Yes, love, I +think he <i>is</i>. I mean that he sees what he can do with +me." +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder took it rightly. "For <i>her</i>." +</p><p> +"For her. Anything in the world he will or he must. +He can use me to the last bone, and he likes at least +that. He says the great thing for her is to be happy." +</p><p> +"It's surely the great thing for every one. Why, +therefore," Mrs. Lowder handsomely asked, "should +we cry so hard about it?" +</p><p> +"Only," poor Susie wailed, "that it's so strange, +so beyond us. I mean if she can't be." +</p><p> +"She must be." Mrs. Lowder knew no impossibles. +"She <i>shall</i> be." +</p><p> +"Well—if you'll help. He thinks, you know, we +<i>can</i> help." +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder faced a moment, in her massive way, +what Sir Luke Strett thought. She sat back there, +her knees apart, not unlike a picturesque ear-ringed +matron at a market-stall; while her friend, before her, +dropped their items, tossed the separate truths of the +matter one by one, into her capacious apron. "But is +that all he came to you for—to tell you she must +be happy?" +</p><p> +"That she must be <i>made</i> so—that's the point. It +seemed enough, as he told me," Mrs. Stringham went +on; "he makes it somehow such a grand possible +affair." +</p><p> +"Ah well, if he makes it possible!" +</p><p> +"I mean especially he makes it grand. He gave it +to me, that is, as <i>my</i> part. The rest's his own." +</p><p> +"And what's the rest?" Mrs. Lowder asked. +</p><p> +"I don't know. <i>His</i> business. He means to keep +hold of her." +</p><p> +"Then why do you say it isn't a 'case'? It must +be very much of one." +</p><p> +Everything in Mrs. Stringham confessed to the +extent of it. "It's only that it isn't <i>the</i> case she herself +supposed." +</p><p> +"It's another?" +</p><p> +"It's another." +</p><p> +"Examining her for what she supposed he finds +something else?" +</p><p> +"Something else." +</p><p> +"And what does he find?" +</p><p> +"Ah," Mrs. Stringham cried, "God keep me from +knowing!" +</p><p> +"He didn't tell you that?" +</p><p> +But poor Susie had recovered herself. "What I +mean is that if it's there I shall know in time. He's +considering, but I can trust him for it—because he +does, I feel, trust me. He's considering," she repeated. +</p><p> +"He's in other words not sure?" +</p><p> +"Well, he's watching. I think that's what he +means. She's to get away now, but to come back to +him in three months." +</p><p> +"Then I think," said Maud Lowder, "that he +oughtn't meanwhile to scare us." +</p><p> +It roused Susie a little, Susie being already enrolled +in the great doctor's cause. This came out at +least in her glimmer of reproach. "Does it scare us +to enlist us for her happiness?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder was rather stiff for it. "Yes; it +scares <i>me</i>. I'm always scared—I may call it so—till +I understand. What happiness is he talking +about?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham at this came straight. "Oh you +know!" +</p><p> +She had really said it so that her friend had to take +it; which the latter in fact after a moment showed +herself as having done. A strange light humour in +the matter even perhaps suddenly aiding, she met it +with a certain accommodation. "Well, say one seems +to see. The point is—!" But, fairly too full now of +her question, she dropped. +</p><p> +"The point is will it <i>cure?</i>" +</p><p> +"Precisely. Is it absolutely a remedy—the specific?" +</p><p> +"Well, I should think we might know!" Mrs. +Stringham delicately declared. +</p><p> +"Ah but we haven't the complaint." +</p><p> +"Have you never, dearest, been in love?" Susan +Shepherd enquired. +</p><p> +"Yes, my child; but not by the doctor's direction." +</p><p> +Maud Manningham had spoken perforce with a +break into momentary mirth, which operated—and +happily too—as a challenge to her visitor's spirit. +"Oh of course we don't ask his leave to fall. But +it's something to know he thinks it good for us." +</p><p> +"My dear woman," Mrs. Lowder cried, "it strikes +me we know it without him. So that when <i>that's</i> +all he has to tell us—!" +</p><p> +"Ah," Mrs. Stringham interposed, "it isn't 'all.' +I feel Sir Luke will have more; he won't have put +me off with anything inadequate. I'm to see him +again; he as good as told me that he'll wish it. So +it won't be for nothing." +</p><p> +"Then what will it be for? Do you mean he has +somebody of his own to propose? Do you mean you +told him nothing?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham dealt with these questions. "I +showed him I understood him. That was all I could +do. I didn't feel at liberty to be explicit; but I felt, +even though his visit so upset me, the comfort of what +I had from you night before last." +</p><p> +"What I spoke to you of in the carriage when we +had left her with Kate?" +</p><p> +"You had <i>seen</i>, apparently, in three minutes. And +now that he's here, now that I've met him and had +my impression of him, I feel," said Mrs. Stringham, +"that you've been magnificent." +</p><p> +"Of course I've been magnificent. When," asked +Maud Manningham, "was I anything else? But +Milly won't be, you know, if she marries Merton +Densher." +</p><p> +"Oh it's always magnificent to marry the man +one loves. But we're going fast!" Mrs. Stringham +woefully smiled. +</p><p> +"The thing <i>is</i> to go fast if I see the case right. What +had I after all but my instinct of that on coming back +with you, night before last, to pick up Kate? I felt +what I felt—I knew in my bones the man had returned." +</p><p> +"That's just where, as I say, you're magnificent. +But wait," said Mrs. Stringham, "till you've seen +him." +</p><p> +"I shall see him immediately"—Mrs. Lowder +took it up with decision. "What is then," she asked, +"your impression?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham's impression seemed lost in her +doubts. "How can he ever care for her?" +</p><p> +Her companion, in her companion's heavy manner, +sat on it. "By being put in the way of it." +</p><p> +"For God's sake then," Mrs. Stringham wailed, +"<i>put</i> him in the way! You have him, one feels, in +your hand." +</p><p> +Maud Lowder's eyes at this rested on her friend's. +"Is that your impression of him?" +</p><p> +"It's my impression, dearest, of you. You handle +every one." +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder's eyes still rested, and Susan Shepherd +now felt, for a wonder, not less sincere by seeing +that she pleased her. But there was a great limitation. +"I don't handle Kate." +</p><p> +It suggested something that her visitor hadn't yet +had from her—something the sense of which made +Mrs. Stringham gasp. "Do you mean Kate cares +for <i>him?</i>" +</p><p> +That fact the lady of Lancaster Gate had up to +this moment, as we know, enshrouded, and her friend's +quick question had produced a change in her face. +She blinked—then looked at the question hard; +after which, whether she had inadvertently betrayed +herself or had only reached a decision and then been +affected by the quality of Mrs. Stringham's surprise, +she accepted all results. What took place in her for +Susan Shepherd was not simply that she made the +best of them, but that she suddenly saw more in them +to her purpose than she could have imagined. A +certain impatience in fact marked in her this transition: +she had been keeping back, very hard, an important +truth, and wouldn't have liked to hear that +she hadn't concealed it cleverly. Susie nevertheless +felt herself pass as not a little of a fool with her +for not having thought of it. What Susie indeed, +however, most thought of at present, in the quick, +new light of it, was the wonder of Kate's dissimulation. +She had time for that view while she waited for +an answer to her cry. "Kate thinks she cares. But +she's mistaken. And no one knows it." These things, +distinct and responsible, were Mrs. Lowder's retort. +Yet they weren't all of it. "<i>You</i> don't know it—that +must be your line. Or rather your line must be +that you deny it utterly." +</p><p> +"Deny that she cares for him?" +</p><p> +"Deny that she so much as thinks that she does. +Positively and absolutely. Deny that you've so much +as heard of it." +</p><p> +Susie faced this new duty. "To Milly, you mean—if +she asks?" +</p><p> +"To Milly, naturally. No one else <i>will</i> ask." +</p><p> +"Well," said Mrs. Stringham after a moment, +"Milly won't." +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder wondered. "Are you sure?" +</p><p> +"Yes, the more I think of it. And luckily for <i>me</i>. +I lie badly." +</p><p> +"<i>I</i> lie well, thank God," Mrs. Lowder almost +snorted, "when, as sometimes will happen, there's +nothing else so good. One must always do the best. +But without lies then," she went on, "perhaps we +can work it out." Her interest had risen; her friend +saw her, as within some minutes, more enrolled and +inflamed—presently felt in her what had made the +difference. Mrs. Stringham, it was true, descried +this at the time but dimly; she only made out at first +that Maud had found a reason for helping her. The +reason was that, strangely, she might help Maud too, +for which she now desired to profess herself ready +even to lying. What really perhaps most came out +for her was that her hostess was a little disappointed +at her doubt of the social solidity of this appliance; +and that in turn was to become a steadier light. The +truth about Kate's delusion, as her aunt presented +it, the delusion about the state of her affections, which +might be removed—this was apparently the ground +on which they now might more intimately meet. Mrs. +Stringham saw herself recruited for the removal of +Kate's delusion—by arts, however, in truth, that she +as yet quite failed to compass. Or was it perhaps to be +only for the removal of Mr. Densher's?—success in +which indeed might entail other successes. Before that +job, unfortunately, her heart had already failed. She +felt that she believed in her bones what Milly believed, +and what would now make working for Milly such +a dreadful upward tug. All this within her was confusedly +present—a cloud of questions out of which +Maud Manningham's large seated self loomed, however, +as a mass more and more definite, taking in fact +for the consultative relation something of the form of +an oracle. From the oracle the sound did come—or +at any rate the sense did, a sense all accordant with +the insufflation she had just seen working. "Yes," the +sense was, "I'll help you for Milly, because if that +comes off I shall be helped, by its doing so, for Kate"—a +view into which Mrs. Stringham could now sufficiently +enter. She found herself of a sudden, strange +to say, quite willing to operate to Kate's harm, or at +least to Kate's good as Mrs. Lowder with a noble +anxiety measured it. She found herself in short not +caring what became of Kate—only convinced at +bottom of the predominance of Kate's star. Kate +wasn't in danger, Kate wasn't pathetic; Kate Croy, +whatever happened, would take care of Kate Croy. +She saw moreover by this time that her friend was +travelling even beyond her own speed. Mrs. Lowder +had already, in mind, drafted a rough plan of action, +a plan vividly enough thrown off as she said: "You +must stay on a few days, and you must immediately, +both of you, meet him at dinner." In addition to +which Maud claimed the merit of having by an instinct +of pity, of prescient wisdom, done much, two nights +before, to prepare that ground. "The poor child, +when I was with her there while you were getting +your shawl, quite gave herself away to me." +</p><p> +"Oh I remember how you afterwards put it to me. +Though it was nothing more," Susie did herself the +justice to observe, "than what I too had quite felt." +</p><p> +But Mrs. Lowder fronted her so on this that she +wondered what she had said. "I suppose I ought +to be edified at what you can so beautifully give up." +</p><p> +"Give up?" Mrs. Stringham echoed. "Why, I +give up nothing—I cling." +</p><p> +Her hostess showed impatience, turning again with +some stiffness to her great brass-bound cylinder-desk +and giving a push to an object or two disposed there. +"I give up then. You know how little such a person +as Mr. Densher was to be my idea for her. You know +what I've been thinking perfectly possible." +</p><p> +"Oh you've been great"—Susie was perfectly +fair. "A duke, a duchess, a princess, a palace: you've +made me believe in them too. But where we break +down is that <i>she</i> doesn't believe in them. Luckily +for her—as it seems to be turning out—she doesn't +want them. So what's one to do? I assure you +I've had many dreams. But I've only one dream +now." +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham's tone in these last words gave so +fully her meaning that Mrs. Lowder could but show +herself as taking it in. They sat a moment longer +confronted on it. "Her having what she does want?" +</p><p> +"If it <i>will</i> do anything for her." +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder seemed to think what it might do; +but she spoke for the instant of something else. "It +does provoke me a bit, you know—for of course I'm +a brute. And I had thought of all sorts of things. +Yet it doesn't prevent the fact that we must be +decent." +</p><p> +"We must take her"—Mrs. Stringham carried +that out—"as she is." +</p><p> +"And we must take Mr. Densher as <i>he</i> is." With +which Mrs. Lowder gave a sombre laugh. "It's a +pity he isn't better!" +</p><p> +"Well, if he were better," her friend rejoined, +"you'd have liked him for your niece; and in that +case Milly would interfere. I mean," Susie added, +"interfere with <i>you</i>." +</p><p> +"She interferes with me as it is—not that it matters +now. But I saw Kate and her—really as soon as +you came to me—set up side by side. I saw your +girl—I don't mind telling—you helping my girl; +and when I say that," Mrs. Lowder continued, +"you'll probably put in for yourself that it was part +of the reason of my welcome to you. So you see what +I give up. I do give it up. But when I take that line," +she further set forth, "I take it handsomely. So good-bye +to it all. Good-day to Mrs. Densher! Heavens!" +she growled. +</p><p> +Susie held herself a minute. "Even as Mrs. Densher +my girl will be somebody." +</p><p> +"Yes, she won't be nobody. Besides," said Mrs. +Lowder, "we're talking in the air." +</p><p> +Her companion sadly assented. "We're leaving +everything out." +</p><p> +"It's nevertheless interesting." And Mrs. Lowder +had another thought. "<i>He's</i> not quite nobody +either." It brought her back to the question she had +already put and which her friend hadn't at the time +dealt with. "What in fact do you make of him?" +</p><p> +Susan Shepherd, at this, for reasons not clear even +to herself, was moved a little to caution. So she remained +general. "He's charming." +</p><p> +She had met Mrs. Lowder's eyes with that extreme +pointedness in her own to which people resort +when they are not quite candid—a circumstance that +had its effect. "Yes; he's charming." +</p><p> +The effect of the words, however, was equally +marked; they almost determined in Mrs. Stringham +a return of amusement. "I thought you didn't like +him!" +</p><p> +"I don't like him for Kate." +</p><p> +"But you don't like him for Milly either." +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham rose as she spoke, and her friend +also got up. "I like him, my dear, for myself." +</p><p> +"Then that's the best way of all." +</p><p> +"Well, it's one way. He's not good enough for +my niece, and he's not good enough for you. One's +an aunt, one's a wretch and one's a fool." +</p><p> +"Oh <i>I'm</i> not—not either," Susie declared. +</p><p> +But her companion kept on. "One lives for others. +<i>You</i> do that. If I were living for myself I shouldn't +at all mind him." +</p><p> +But Mrs. Stringham was sturdier. "Ah if I find +him charming it's however I'm living." +</p><p> +Well, it broke Mrs. Lowder down. She hung fire +but an instant, giving herself away with a laugh. +"Of course he's all right in himself." +</p><p> +"That's all I contend," Susie said with more reserve; +and the note in question—what Merton Densher +was "in himself"—closed practically, with +some inconsequence, this first of their councils. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">II</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +It had at least made the difference for them, they +could feel, of an informed state in respect to the great +doctor, whom they were now to take as watching, +waiting, studying, or at any rate as proposing to himself +some such process before he should make up his +mind. Mrs. Stringham understood him as considering +the matter meanwhile in a spirit that, on this +same occasion, at Lancaster Gate, she had come back +to a rough notation of before retiring. She followed +the course of his reckoning. If what they had talked +of <i>could</i> happen—if Milly, that is, could have her +thoughts taken off herself—it wouldn't do any +harm and might conceivably do much good. If it +couldn't happen—if, anxiously, though tactfully +working, they themselves, conjoined, could do nothing +to contribute to it—they would be in no worse +a box than before. Only in this latter case the girl +would have had her free range for the summer, for the +autumn; she would have done her best in the sense +enjoined on her, and, coming back at the end to her +eminent man, would—besides having more to show +him—find him more ready to go on with her. It +was visible further to Susan Shepherd—as well as +being ground for a second report to her old friend—that +Milly did her part for a working view of the +general case, inasmuch as she mentioned frankly and +promptly that she meant to go and say good-bye to Sir +Luke Strett and thank him. She even specified what +she was to thank him for, his having been so easy +about her behaviour. +</p><p> +"You see I didn't know that—for the liberty I +took—I shouldn't afterwards get a stiff note from +him." +</p><p> +So much Milly had said to her, and it had made +her a trifle rash. "Oh you'll never get a stiff note +from him in your life." +</p><p> +She felt her rashness, the next moment, at her +young friend's question. "Why not, as well as any +one else who has played him a trick?" +</p><p> +"Well, because he doesn't regard it as a trick. +He could understand your action. It's all right, you +see." +</p><p> +"Yes—I do see. It <i>is</i> all right. He's easier with +me than with any one else, because that's the way +to let me down. He's only making believe, and I'm +not worth hauling up." +</p><p> +Rueful at having provoked again this ominous +flare, poor Susie grasped at her only advantage. +"Do you really accuse a man like Sir Luke Strett +of trifling with you?" +</p><p> +She couldn't blind herself to the look her companion +gave her—a strange half-amused perception +of what she made of it. "Well, so far as it's +trifling with me to pity me so much." +</p><p> +"He doesn't pity you," Susie earnestly reasoned. +"He just—the same as any one else—likes you." +</p><p> +"He has no business then to like me. He's not +the same as any one else." +</p><p> +"Why not, if he wants to work for you?" +</p><p> +Milly gave her another look, but this time a wonderful +smile. "Ah there you are!" Mrs. Stringham +coloured, for there indeed she was again. But Milly +let her off. "Work for me, all the same—work for +me! It's of course what I want." Then as usual she +embraced her friend. "I'm not going to be as nasty +as this to <i>him</i>." +</p><p> +"I'm sure I hope not!"—and Mrs. Stringham +laughed for the kiss. "I've no doubt, however, he'd +take it from you! It's <i>you</i>, my dear, who are not the +same as any one else." +</p><p> +Milly's assent to which, after an instant, gave her +the last word. "No, so that people can take anything +from me." And what Mrs. Stringham did indeed +resignedly take after this was the absence on +her part of any account of the visit then paid. It was +the beginning in fact between them of an odd independence—an +independence positively of action +and custom—on the subject of Milly's future. They +went their separate ways with the girl's intense assent; +this being really nothing but what she had so wonderfully +put in her plea for after Mrs. Stringham's first +encounter with Sir Luke. She fairly favoured the +idea that Susie had or was to have other encounters—private +pointed personal; she favoured every idea, +but most of all the idea that she herself was to go on +as if nothing were the matter. Since she was to be +worked for that would be her way; and though her +companions learned from herself nothing of it this +was in the event her way with her medical adviser. +She put her visit to him on the simplest ground; she +had come just to tell him how touched she had been +by his good nature. That required little explaining, +for, as Mrs. Stringham had said, he quite understood +he could but reply that it was all right. +</p><p> +"I had a charming quarter of an hour with that +clever lady. You've got good friends." +</p><p> +"So each one of them thinks of all the others. +But so I also think," Milly went on, "of all of them +together. You're excellent for each other. And it's +in that way, I dare say, that you're best for me." +</p><p> +There came to her on this occasion one of the +strangest of her impressions, which was at the same +time one of the finest of her alarms—the glimmer of +a vision that if she should go, as it were, too far, she +might perhaps deprive their relation of facility if not +of value. Going too far was failing to try at least to +remain simple. He would be quite ready to hate her +if she did, by heading him off at every point, embarrass +his exercise of a kindness that, no doubt, rather +constituted for him a high method. Susie wouldn't +hate her, since Susie positively wanted to suffer for +her; Susie had a noble idea that she might somehow +so do her good. Such, however, was not the way in +which the greatest of London doctors was to be expected +to wish to do it. He wouldn't have time even +should he wish; whereby, in a word, Milly felt herself +intimately warned. Face to face there with her +smooth strong director, she enjoyed at a given moment +quite such another lift of feeling as she had +known in her crucial talk with Susie. It came round +to the same thing; him too she would help to help +her if that could possibly be; but if it couldn't +possibly be she would assist also to make this right. +</p><p> +It wouldn't have taken many minutes more, on the +basis in question, almost to reverse for her their characters +of patient and physician. What <i>was</i> he in fact +but patient, what was she but physician, from the +moment she embraced once for all the necessity, +adopted once for all the policy, of saving him alarms +about her subtlety? She would leave the subtlety to +him: he would enjoy his use of it, and she herself, no +doubt, would in time enjoy his enjoyment. She went +so far as to imagine that the inward success of these +reflexions flushed her for the minute, to his eyes, with +a certain bloom, a comparative appearance of health; +and what verily next occurred was that he gave colour +to the presumption. "Every little helps, no doubt!"—he +noticed good-humouredly her harmless sally. +"But, help or no help, you're looking, you know, +remarkably well." +</p><p> +"Oh I thought I was," she answered; and it was +as if already she saw his line. Only she wondered +what he would have guessed. If he had guessed anything +at all it would be rather remarkable of him. +As for what there <i>was</i> to guess, he couldn't—if this +was present to him—have arrived at it save by his +own acuteness. That acuteness was therefore immense; +and if it supplied the subtlety she thought of +leaving him to, his portion would be none so bad. +Neither, for that matter, would hers be—which she +was even actually enjoying. She wondered if really +then there mightn't be something for her. She +hadn't been sure in coming to him that she was +"better," and he hadn't used, he would be awfully +careful not to use, that compromising term about her; +in spite of all of which she would have been ready to +say, for the amiable sympathy of it, "Yes, I <i>must</i> +be," for he had this unaided sense of something that +had happened to her. It was a sense unaided, because +who could have told him of anything? Susie, she was +certain, hadn't yet seen him again, and there were +things it was impossible she could have told him the +first time. Since such was his penetration, therefore, +why shouldn't she gracefully, in recognition of it, +accept the new circumstance, the one he was clearly +wanting to congratulate her on, as a sufficient cause? +If one nursed a cause tenderly enough it might produce +an effect; and this, to begin with, would be a +way of nursing. "You gave me the other day," she +went on, "plenty to think over, and I've been doing +that—thinking it over—quite as you'll have probably +wished me. I think I must be pretty easy to +treat," she smiled, "since you've already done me so +much good." +</p><p> +The only obstacle to reciprocity with him was that +he looked in advance so closely related to all one's +possibilities that one missed the pleasure of really +improving it. "Oh no, you're extremely difficult to +treat. I've need with you, I assure you, of all my +wit." +</p><p> +"Well, I mean I do come up." She hadn't meanwhile +a bit believed in his answer, convinced as she +was that if she <i>had</i> been difficult it would be the last +thing he would have told her. "I'm doing," she said, +"as I like." +</p><p> +"Then it's as <i>I</i> like. But you must really, though +we're having such a decent month, get straight +away." In pursuance of which, when she had replied +with promptitude that her departure—for the Tyrol +and then for Venice—was quite fixed for the fourteenth, +he took her up with alacrity. "For Venice? +That's perfect, for we shall meet there. I've a dream +of it for October, when I'm hoping for three weeks +off; three weeks during which, if I can get them clear, +my niece, a young person who has quite the whip +hand of me, is to take me where she prefers. I heard +from her only yesterday that she expects to prefer +Venice." +</p><p> +"That's lovely then. I shall expect you there. And +anything that, in advance or in any way, I can do for +you—!" +</p><p> +"Oh thank you. My niece, I seem to feel, does for +me. But it will be capital to find you there." +</p><p> +"I think it ought to make you feel," she said after +a moment, "that I <i>am</i> easy to treat." +</p><p> +But he shook his head again; he wouldn't have it. +"You've not come to that <i>yet</i>." +</p><p> +"One has to be so bad for it?" +</p><p> +"Well, I don't think I've ever come to it—to +'ease' of treatment. I doubt if it's possible. I've not, +if it is, found any one bad enough. The ease, you see, +is for <i>you</i>." +</p><p> +"I see—I see." +</p><p> +They had an odd friendly, but perhaps the +least bit awkward pause on it; after which Sir Luke +asked: "And that clever lady—she goes with +you?" +</p><p> +"Mrs. Stringham? Oh dear, yes. She'll stay with +me, I hope, to the end." +</p><p> +He had a cheerful blankness. "To the end of +what?" +</p><p> +"Well—of everything." +</p><p> +"Ah then," he laughed, "you're in luck. The end +of everything is far off. This, you know, I'm hoping," +said Sir Luke, "is only the beginning." And +the next question he risked might have been a part of +his hope. "Just you and she together?" +</p><p> +"No, two other friends; two ladies of whom we've +seen more here than of any one and who are just the +right people for us." +</p><p> +He thought a moment. "You'll be four women +together then?" +</p><p> +"Ah," said Milly, "we're widows and orphans. +But I think," she added as if to say what she saw +would reassure him, "that we shall not be unattractive, +as we move, to gentlemen. When you talk of +'life' I suppose you mean mainly gentlemen." +</p><p> +"When I talk of 'life,'" he made answer after a +moment during which he might have been appreciating +her raciness—"when I talk of life I think I +mean more than anything else the beautiful show of +it, in its freshness, made by young persons of your age. +So go on as you are. I see more and more <i>how</i> you are. +You can't," he went so far as to say for pleasantness, +"better it." +</p><p> +She took it from him with a great show of peace. +"One of our companions will be Miss Croy, who came +with me here first. It's in <i>her</i> that life is splendid; +and a part of that is even that she's devoted to me. +But she's above all magnificent in herself. So that +if you'd like," she freely threw out, "to see <i>her</i>—" +</p><p> +"Oh I shall like to see any one who's devoted to +you, for clearly it will be jolly to be 'in' it. So that +if she's to be at Venice I <i>shall</i> see her?" +</p><p> +"We must arrange it—I shan't fail. She moreover +has a friend who may also be there"—Milly +found herself going on to this. "He's likely to come, +I believe, for he always follows her." +</p><p> +Sir Luke wondered. "You mean they're lovers?" +</p><p> +"<i>He</i> is," Milly smiled; "but not she. She doesn't +care for him." +</p><p> +Sir Luke took an interest. "What's the matter +with him?" +</p><p> +"Nothing but that she doesn't like him." +</p><p> +Sir Luke kept it up. "Is he all right?" +</p><p> +"Oh he's very nice. Indeed he's remarkably so." +</p><p> +"And he's to be in Venice?" +</p><p> +"So she tells me she fears. For if he is there he'll +be constantly about with her." +</p><p> +"And she'll be constantly about with you?" +</p><p> +"As we're great friends—yes." +</p><p> +"Well then," said Sir Luke, "you won't be four +women alone." +</p><p> +"Oh no; I quite recognise the chance of gentlemen. +But he won't," Milly pursued in the same +wondrous way, "have come, you see, for me." +</p><p> +"No—I see. But can't you help him?" +</p><p> +"Can't <i>you?</i>" Milly after a moment quaintly +asked. Then for the joke of it she explained. "I'm +putting you, you see, in relation with my entourage." +</p><p> +It might have been for the joke of it too, by this +time, that her eminent friend fell in. "But if this +gentleman <i>isn't</i> of your 'entourage '? I mean if he's +of—what do you call her?—Miss Croy's. Unless +indeed you also take an interest in him." +</p><p> +"Oh certainly I take an interest in him!" +</p><p> +"You think there may be then some chance for +him?" +</p><p> +"I like him," said Milly, "enough to hope so." +</p><p> +"Then that's all right. But what, pray," Sir Luke +next asked, "have I to do with him?" +</p><p> +"Nothing," said Milly, "except that if you're to +be there, so may he be. And also that we shan't in +that case be simply four dreary women." +</p><p> +He considered her as if at this point she a little +tried his patience. "<i>You're</i> the least 'dreary' woman +I've ever, ever seen. Ever, do you know? There's no +reason why you shouldn't have a really splendid life." +</p><p> +"So every one tells me," she promptly returned. +</p><p> +"The conviction—strong already when I had seen +you once—is strengthened in me by having seen +your friend. There's no doubt about it. The world's +before you." +</p><p> +"What did my friend tell you?" Milly asked. +</p><p> +"Nothing that wouldn't have given you pleasure. +We talked about you—and freely. I don't deny that. +But it shows me I don't require of you the impossible." +</p><p> +She was now on her feet. "I think I know what +you require of me." +</p><p> +"Nothing, for you," he went on, "<i>is</i> impossible. +So go on." He repeated it again—wanting her so +to feel that to-day he saw it. "You're all right." +</p><p> +"Well," she smiled—"keep me so." +</p><p> +"Oh you'll get away from me." +</p><p> +"Keep me, keep me," she simply continued with +her gentle eyes on him. +</p><p> +She had given him her hand for good-bye, and he +thus for a moment did keep her. Something then, +while he seemed to think if there were anything more, +came back to him; though something of which there +wasn't too much to be made. "Of course if there's +anything I <i>can</i> do for your friend: I mean the gentleman +you speak of—?" He gave out in short that he +was ready. +</p><p> +"Oh Mr. Densher?" It was as if she had forgotten. +</p><p> +"Mr. Densher—is that his name?" +</p><p> +"Yes—but his case isn't so dreadful." She had +within a minute got away from that. +</p><p> +"No doubt—if <i>you</i> take an interest." She had +got away, but it was as if he made out in her eyes—though +they also had rather got away—a reason for +calling her back. "Still, if there's anything one can +do—?" +</p><p> +She looked at him while she thought, while she +smiled. "I'm afraid there's really nothing one can +do." +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">III</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +Not yet so much as this morning had she felt herself +sink into possession; gratefully glad that the warmth +of the Southern summer was still in the high florid +rooms, palatial chambers where hard cool pavements +took reflexions in their lifelong polish, and where the +sun on the stirred sea-water, flickering up through +open windows, played over the painted "subjects" +in the splendid ceilings—medallions of purple and +brown, of brave old melancholy colour, medals as +of old reddened gold, embossed and beribboned, all +toned with time and all flourished and scolloped and +gilded about, set in their great moulded and figured +concavity (a nest of white cherubs, friendly creatures +of the air) and appreciated by the aid of that second +tier of smaller lights, straight openings to the front, +which did everything, even with the Baedekers and +photographs of Milly's party dreadfully meeting the +eye, to make of the place an apartment of state. This +at last only, though she had enjoyed the palace for +three weeks, seemed to count as effective occupation; +perhaps because it was the first time she had been +alone—really to call alone—since she had left +London, it ministered to her first full and unembarrassed +sense of what the great Eugenio had done for +her. The great Eugenio, recommended by grand-dukes +and Americans, had entered her service during +the last hours of all—had crossed from Paris, after +multiplied <i>pourparlers</i> with Mrs. Stringham, to whom +she had allowed more than ever a free hand, on purpose +to escort her to the Continent and encompass her +there, and had dedicated to her, from the moment of +their meeting, all the treasures of his experience. She +had judged him in advance—polyglot and universal, +very dear and very deep—as probably but a swindler +finished to the finger-tips; for he was forever carrying +one well-kept Italian hand to his heart and plunging +the other straight into her pocket, which, as she had +instantly observed him to recognise, fitted it like a +glove. The remarkable thing was that these elements +of their common consciousness had rapidly gathered +into an indestructible link, formed the ground of a +happy relation; being by this time, strangely, grotesquely, +delightfully, what most kept up confidence +between them and what most expressed it. +</p><p> +She had seen quickly enough what was happening—the +usual thing again, yet once again. Eugenio +had, in an interview of five minutes, understood her, +had got hold, like all the world, of the idea not so much +of the care with which she must be taken up as of the +care with which she must be let down. All the world +understood her, all the world had got hold; but for +nobody yet, she felt, would the idea have been so +close a tie or won from herself so patient a surrender. +Gracefully, respectfully, consummately enough—always +with hands in position and the look, in his +thick neat white hair, smooth fat face and black professional, +almost theatrical eyes, as of some famous +tenor grown too old to make love, but with an art still +to make money—did he on occasion convey to her +that she was, of all the clients of his glorious career, +the one in whom his interest was most personal and +paternal. The others had come in the way of business, +but for her his sentiment was special. Confidence +rested thus on her completely believing that: +there was nothing of which she felt more sure. It +passed between them every time they conversed; he +was abysmal, but this intimacy lived on the surface. +He had taken his place already for her among those who +were to see her through, and meditation ranked him, +in the constant perspective, for the final function, side +by side with poor Susie—whom she was now pitying +more than ever for having to be herself so sorry and to +say so little about it. Eugenio had the general tact +of a residuary legatee—which was a character that +could be definitely worn; whereas she could see Susie, +in the event of her death, in no character at all, Susie +being insistently, exclusively concerned in her mere +makeshift duration. This principle, for that matter, +Milly at present, with a renewed flare of fancy, felt +she should herself have liked to believe in. Eugenio +had really done for her more than he probably knew—he +didn't after all know everything—in having, +for the wind-up of the autumn, on a weak word from +her, so admirably, so perfectly established her. Her +weak word, as a general hint, had been: "At Venice, +please, if possible, no dreadful, no vulgar hotel; but, +if it can be at all managed—you know what I mean—some +fine old rooms, wholly independent, for a +series of months. Plenty of them too, and the more +interesting the better: part of a palace, historic and +picturesque, but strictly inodorous, where we shall +be to ourselves, with a cook, don't you know?—with +servants, frescoes, tapestries, antiquities, the +thorough make-believe of a settlement." +</p><p> +The proof of how he better and better understood +her was in all the place; as to his masterly acquisition +of which she had from the first asked no questions. +She had shown him enough what she thought of it, +and her forbearance pleased him; with the part of the +transaction that mainly concerned her she would soon +enough become acquainted, and his connexion with +such values as she would then find noted could scarce +help growing, as it were, still more residuary. Charming +people, conscious Venice-lovers, evidently, had +given up their house to her, and had fled to a distance, +to other countries, to hide their blushes alike +over what they had, however briefly, alienated, and +over what they had, however durably, gained. They +had preserved and consecrated, and she now—her +part of it was shameless—appropriated and enjoyed. +Palazzo Leporelli held its history still in its great lap, +even like a painted idol, a solemn puppet hung about +with decorations. Hung about with pictures and +relics, the rich Venetian past, the ineffaceable character, +was here the presence revered and served: which +brings us back to our truth of a moment ago—the +fact that, more than ever, this October morning, +awkward novice though she might be, Milly moved +slowly to and fro as the priestess of the worship. Certainly +it came from the sweet taste of solitude, caught +again and cherished for the hour; always a need of +her nature, moreover, when things spoke to her with +penetration. It was mostly in stillness they spoke to +her best; amid voices she lost the sense. Voices had +surrounded her for weeks, and she had tried to listen, +had cultivated them and had answered back; these +had been weeks in which there were other things they +might well prevent her from hearing. More than the +prospect had at first promised or threatened she had +felt herself going on in a crowd and with a multiplied +escort; the four ladies pictured by her to Sir Luke +Strett as a phalanx comparatively closed and detached +had in fact proved a rolling snowball, condemned +from day to day to cover more ground. Susan +Shepherd had compared this portion of the girl's excursion +to the Empress Catherine's famous progress +across the steppes of Russia; improvised settlements +appeared at each turn of the road, villagers waiting +with addresses drawn up in the language of London. +Old friends in fine were in ambush, Mrs. Lowder's, +Kate Croy's, her own; when the addresses weren't +in the language of London they were in the more insistent +idioms of American centres. The current was +swollen even by Susie's social connexions; so that +there were days, at hotels, at Dolomite picnics, on +lake steamers, when she could almost repay to Aunt +Maud and Kate with interest the debt contracted by +the London "success" to which they had opened the +door. +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder's success and Kate's, amid the shock +of Milly's and Mrs. Stringham's compatriots, failed +but little, really, of the concert-pitch; it had gone +almost as fast as the boom, over the sea, of the last +great native novel. Those ladies were "so different"—different, +observably enough, from the ladies so +appraising them; it being throughout a case mainly +of ladies, of a dozen at once sometimes, in Milly's +apartment, pointing, also at once, that moral and +many others. Milly's companions were acclaimed +not only as perfectly fascinating in themselves, the +nicest people yet known to the acclaimers, but as obvious +helping hands, socially speaking, for the eccentric +young woman, evident initiators and smoothers +of her path, possible subduers of her eccentricity. +Short intervals, to her own sense, stood now for great +differences, and this renewed inhalation of her native +air had somehow left her to feel that she already, that +she mainly, struck the compatriot as queer and dissociated. +She moved such a critic, it would appear, +as to rather an odd suspicion, a benevolence induced +by a want of complete trust: all of which showed her +in the light of a person too plain and too ill-clothed +for a thorough good time, and yet too rich and too +befriended—an intuitive cunning within her managing +this last—for a thorough bad one. The compatriots, +in short, by what she made out, approved +her friends for their expert wisdom with her; in spite +of which judicial sagacity it was the compatriots who +recorded themselves as the innocent parties. She saw +things in these days that she had never seen before, +and she couldn't have said why save on a principle +too terrible to name; whereby she saw that neither +Lancaster Gate was what New York took it for, nor +New York what Lancaster Gate fondly fancied it in +coquetting with the plan of a series of American visits. +The plan might have been, humorously, on Mrs. +Lowder's part, for the improvement of her social +position—and it had verily in that direction lights +that were perhaps but half a century too prompt; at +all of which Kate Croy assisted with the cool controlled +facility that went so well, as the others said, +with her particular kind of good looks, the kind that +led you to expect the person enjoying them <i>would</i> +dispose of disputations, speculations, aspirations, in +a few very neatly and brightly uttered words, so simplified +in sense, however, that they sounded, even +when guiltless, like rather aggravated slang. It wasn't +that Kate hadn't pretended too that <i>she</i> should like +to go to America; it was only that with this young +woman Milly had constantly proceeded, and more +than ever of late, on the theory of intimate confessions, +private frank ironies that made up for their +public grimaces and amid which, face to face, they +wearily put off the mask. +</p><p> +These puttings-off of the mask had finally quite +become the form taken by their moments together, +moments indeed not increasingly frequent and not +prolonged, thanks to the consciousness of fatigue +on Milly's side whenever, as she herself expressed it, +she got out of harness. They flourished their masks, +the independent pair, as they might have flourished +Spanish fans; they smiled and sighed on removing +them; but the gesture, the smiles, the sighs, strangely +enough, might have been suspected the greatest reality +in the business. Strangely enough, we say, for the +volume of effusion in general would have been found +by either on measurement to be scarce proportional +to the paraphernalia of relief. It was when they called +each other's attention to their ceasing to pretend, it +was then that what they were keeping back was most +in the air. There was a difference, no doubt, and +mainly to Kate's advantage: Milly didn't quite see +what her friend could keep back, was possessed of, in +fine, that would be so subject to retention; whereas it +was comparatively plain sailing for Kate that poor +Milly had a treasure to hide. This was not the treasure +of a shy, an abject affection—concealment, on +that head, belonging to quite another phase of such +states; it was much rather a principle of pride relatively +bold and hard, a principle that played up like +a fine steel spring at the lightest pressure of too near +a footfall. Thus insuperably guarded was the truth +about the girl's own conception of her validity; thus +was a wondering pitying sister condemned wistfully +to look at her from the far side of the moat she had +dug round her tower. Certain aspects of the connexion +of these young women show for us, such is the +twilight that gathers about them, in the likeness of +some dim scene in a Maeterlinck play; we have positively +the image, in the delicate dusk, of the figures +so associated and yet so opposed, so mutually watchful: +that of the angular pale princess, ostrich-plumed, +black-robed, hung about with amulets, reminders, +relics, mainly seated, mainly still, and that of the upright +restless slow-circling lady of her court who exchanges +with her, across the black water streaked +with evening gleams, fitful questions and answers. +The upright lady, with thick dark braids down her +back, drawing over the grass a more embroidered +train, makes the whole circuit, and makes it again, and +the broken talk, brief and sparingly allusive, seems +more to cover than to free their sense. This is because, +when it fairly comes to not having others to consider, +they meet in an air that appears rather anxiously to +wait for their words. Such an impression as that was +in fact grave, and might be tragic; so that, plainly +enough, systematically at last, they settled to a care +of what they said. +</p><p> +There could be no gross phrasing to Milly, in particular, +of the probability that if she wasn't so proud +she might be pitied with more comfort—more to the +person pitying; there could be no spoken proof, no +sharper demonstration than the consistently considerate +attitude, that this marvellous mixture of her +weakness and of her strength, her peril, if such it were, +and her option, made her, kept her, irresistibly interesting. +Kate's predicament in the matter was, after all, +very much Mrs. Stringham's own, and Susan Shepherd +herself indeed, in our Maeterlinck picture, might well +have hovered in the gloaming by the moat. It may be +declared for Kate, at all events, that her sincerity +about her friend, through this time, was deep, her +compassionate imagination strong; and that these +things gave her a virtue, a good conscience, a credibility +for herself, so to speak, that were later to be +precious to her. She grasped with her keen intelligence +the logic of their common duplicity, went unassisted +through the same ordeal as Milly's other +hushed follower, easily saw that for the girl to be explicit +was to betray divinations, gratitudes, glimpses +of the felt contrast between her fortune and her fear—all +of which would have contradicted her systematic +bravado. That was it, Kate wonderingly +saw: to recognise was to bring down the avalanche—the +avalanche Milly lived so in watch for and that +might be started by the lightest of breaths; though +less possibly the breath of her own stifled plaint than +that of the vain sympathy, the mere helpless gaping +inference of others. With so many suppressions as +these, therefore, between them, their withdrawal together +to unmask had to fall back, as we have hinted, +on a nominal motive—which was decently represented +by a joy at the drop of chatter. Chatter had in +truth all along attended their steps, but they took the +despairing view of it on purpose to have ready, when +face to face, some view or other of something. The +relief of getting out of harness—that was the moral +of their meetings; but the moral of this, in turn, was +that they couldn't so much as ask each other why +harness need be worn. Milly wore it as a general +armour. +</p><p> +She was out of it at present, for some reason, as she +hadn't been for weeks; she was always out of it, that +is, when alone, and her companions had never yet so +much as just now affected her as dispersed and suppressed. +It was as if still again, still more tacitly and +wonderfully, Eugenio had understood her, taking it +from her without a word and just bravely and brilliantly +in the name, for instance, of the beautiful day: +"Yes, get me an hour alone; take them off—I don't +care where; absorb, amuse, detain them; drown +them, kill them if you will: so that I may just a little, +all by myself, see where I am." She was conscious of +the dire impatience of it, for she gave up Susie as well +as the others to him—Susie who would have drowned +her very self for her; gave her up to a mercenary +monster through whom she thus purchased respites. +Strange were the turns of life and the moods of weakness; +strange the flickers of fancy and the cheats of +hope; yet lawful, all the same—weren't they?—those +experiments tried with the truth that consisted, +at the worst, but in practising on one's self. She was +now playing with the thought that Eugenio might +<i>inclusively</i> assist her: he had brought home to her, +and always by remarks that were really quite soundless, +the conception, hitherto ungrasped, of some +complete use of her wealth itself, some use of it as +a counter-move to fate. It had passed between them +as preposterous that with so much money she should +just stupidly and awkwardly <i>want</i>—any more want +a life, a career, a consciousness, than want a house, a +carriage or a cook. It was as if she had had from him +a kind of expert professional measure of what he was +in a position, at a stretch, to undertake for her; the +thoroughness of which, for that matter, she could +closely compare with a looseness on Sir Luke Strett's +part that—at least in Palazzo Leporelli when mornings +were fine—showed as almost amateurish. Sir +Luke hadn't said to her "Pay enough money and +leave the rest to <i>me</i>"—which was distinctly what +Eugenio did say. Sir Luke had appeared indeed to +speak of purchase and payment, but in reference +to a different sort of cash. Those were amounts not to +be named nor reckoned, and such moreover as she +wasn't sure of having at her command. Eugenio—this +was the difference—could name, could reckon, +and prices of <i>his</i> kind were things she had never suffered +to scare her. She had been willing, goodness +knew, to pay enough for anything, for everything, and +here was simply a new view of the sufficient quantity. +She amused herself—for it came to that, since Eugenio +was there to sign the receipt—with possibilities +of meeting the bill. She was more prepared than +ever to pay enough, and quite as much as ever to pay +too much. What else—if such were points at which +your most trusted servant failed—was the use of +being, as the dear Susies of earth called you, a princess +in a palace? +</p><p> +She made now, alone, the full circuit of the place, +noble and peaceful while the summer sea, stirring +here and there a curtain or an outer blind, breathed +into its veiled spaces. She had a vision of clinging to +it; that perhaps Eugenio could manage. She was <i>in</i> it, +as in the ark of her deluge, and filled with such a tenderness +for it that why shouldn't this, in common +mercy, be warrant enough? She would never, never +leave it—she would engage to that; would ask nothing +more than to sit tight in it and float on and on. +The beauty and intensity, the real momentary relief +of this conceit, reached their climax in the positive +purpose to put the question to Eugenio on his return +as she had not yet put it; though the design, it must be +added, dropped a little when, coming back to the great +saloon from which she had started on her pensive +progress, she found Lord Mark, of whose arrival in +Venice she had been unaware, and who had now—while +a servant was following her through empty +rooms—been asked, in her absence, to wait. He had +waited then, Lord Mark, he was waiting—oh unmistakeably; +never before had he so much struck her +as the man to do that on occasion with patience, to do +it indeed almost as with gratitude for the chance, +though at the same time with a sort of notifying firmness. +The odd thing, as she was afterwards to recall, +was that her wonder for what had brought him was +not immediate, but had come at the end of five minutes; +and also, quite incoherently, that she felt almost +as glad to see him, and almost as forgiving of his interruption +of her solitude, as if he had already been in +her thought or acting at her suggestion. He was some-how, +at the best, the end of a respite; one might like +him very much and yet feel that his presence tempered +precious solitude more than any other known to +one: in spite of all of which, as he was neither dear +Susie, nor dear Kate, nor dear Aunt Maud, nor even, +for the least, dear Eugenio in person, the sight of him +did no damage to her sense of the dispersal of her +friends. She hadn't been so thoroughly alone with +him since those moments of his showing her the great +portrait at Matcham, the moments that had exactly +made the high-water-mark of her security, the moments +during which her tears themselves, those she +had been ashamed of, were the sign of her consciously +rounding her protective promontory, quitting the blue +gulf of comparative ignorance and reaching her view +of the troubled sea. His presence now referred itself +to his presence then, reminding her how kind he had +been, altogether, at Matcham, and telling her, unexpectedly, +at a time when she could particularly feel +it, that, for such kindness and for the beauty of what +they remembered together, she hadn't lost him—quite +the contrary. To receive him handsomely, to +receive him there, to see him interested and charmed, +as well, clearly, as delighted to have found her without +some other person to spoil it—these things were +so pleasant for the first minutes that they might have +represented on her part some happy foreknowledge. +She gave an account of her companions while he on +his side failed to press her about them, even though +describing his appearance, so unheralded, as the +result of an impulse obeyed on the spot. He had been +shivering at Carlsbad, belated there and blue, when +taken by it; so that, knowing where they all were, he +had simply caught the first train. He explained how +he had known where they were; he had heard—what +more natural?—from their friends, Milly's and his. +He mentioned this betimes, but it was with his mention, +singularly, that the girl became conscious of her +inner question about his reason. She noticed his +plural, which added to Mrs. Lowder or added to +Kate; but she presently noticed also that it didn't +affect her as explaining. Aunt Maud had written to +him, Kate apparently—and this was interesting—had +written to him; but their design presumably +hadn't been that he should come and sit there as if +rather relieved, so far as <i>they</i> were concerned, at postponements. +He only said "Oh!" and again "Oh!" +when she sketched their probable morning for him, +under Eugenio's care and Mrs. Stringham's—sounding +it quite as if any suggestion that he should +overtake them at the Rialto or the Bridge of Sighs +would leave him temporarily cold. This precisely it +was that, after a little, operated for Milly as an obscure +but still fairly direct check to confidence. He +had known where they all were from the others, but +it was not for the others that, in his actual dispositions, +he had come. That, strange to say, was a pity; for, +stranger still to say, she could have shown him more +confidence if he himself had had less intention. His +intention so chilled her, from the moment she found +herself divining it, that, just for the pleasure of going +on with him fairly, just for the pleasure of their remembrance +together of Matcham and the Bronzino, +the climax of her fortune, she could have fallen to +pleading with him and to reasoning, to undeceiving +him in time. There had been, for ten minutes, with +the directness of her welcome to him and the way this +clearly pleased him, something of the grace of amends +made, even though he couldn't know it—amends +for her not having been originally sure, for instance at +that first dinner of Aunt Maud's, that he was adequately +human. That first dinner of Aunt Maud's +added itself to the hour at Matcham, added itself to +other things, to consolidate, for her present benevolence, +the ease of their relation, making it suddenly delightful +that he had thus turned up. He exclaimed, +as he looked about, on the charm of the place: "What +a temple to taste and an expression of the pride of life, +yet, with all that, what a jolly <i>home!</i>"—so that, for +his entertainment, she could offer to walk him about +though she mentioned that she had just been, for her +own purposes, in a general prowl, taking everything +in more susceptibly than before. He embraced her +offer without a scruple and seemed to rejoice that he +was to find her susceptible. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">IV</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +She couldn't have said what it was, in the conditions, +that renewed the whole solemnity, but by the +end of twenty minutes a kind of wistful hush had fallen +upon them, as before something poignant in which her +visitor also participated. That was nothing verily but +the perfection of the charm—or nothing rather but +their excluded disinherited state in the presence of it. +The charm turned on them a face that was cold in its +beauty, that was full of a poetry never to be theirs, +that spoke with an ironic smile of a possible but +forbidden life. It all rolled afresh over Milly: "Oh +the impossible romance—!" The romance for +her, yet once more, would be to sit there for ever, +through all her time, as in a fortress; and the idea +became an image of never going down, of remaining +aloft in the divine dustless air, where she would +hear but the plash of the water against stone. The +great floor on which they moved was at an altitude, +and this prompted the rueful fancy. "Ah not to go +down—never, never to go down!" she strangely +sighed to her friend. +</p><p> +"But why shouldn't you," he asked, "with that +tremendous old staircase in your court? There ought +of course always to be people at top and bottom, in +Veronese costumes, to watch you do it." +</p><p> +She shook her head both lightly and mournfully +enough at his not understanding. "Not even for +people in Veronese costumes. I mean that the positive +beauty is that one needn't go down. I don't +move in fact," she added—"now. I've not been out, +you know. I stay up. That's how you happily found +me." +</p><p> +Lord Mark wondered—he was, oh yes, adequately +human. "You don't go about?" +</p><p> +She looked over the place, the storey above the +apartments in which she had received him, the sala +corresponding to the sala below and fronting the +great canal with its gothic arches. The casements +between the arches were open, the ledge of the balcony +broad, the sweep of the canal, so overhung, +admirable, and the flutter toward them of the loose +white curtain an invitation to she scarce could have +said what. But there was no mystery after a moment; +she had never felt so invited to anything as to +make that, and that only, just where she was, her +adventure. It would be—to this it kept coming +back—the adventure of not stirring. "I go about +just here." +</p><p> +"Do you mean," Lord Mark presently asked, +"that you're really not well?" +</p><p> +They were at the window, pausing, lingering, with +the fine old faded palaces opposite and the slow +Adriatic tide beneath; but after a minute, and before +she answered, she had closed her eyes to what she +saw and unresistingly dropped her face into her arms, +which rested on the coping. She had fallen to her +knees on the cushion of the window-place, and she +leaned there, in a long silence, with her forehead down. +She knew that her silence was itself too straight an +answer, but it was beyond her now to say that she +saw her way. She would have made the question +itself impossible to others—impossible for example +to such a man as Merton Densher; and she could +wonder even on the spot what it was a sign of in her +feeling for Lord Mark that from his lips it almost +tempted her to break down. This was doubtless really +because she cared for him so little; to let herself go +with him thus, suffer his touch to make her cup overflow, +would be the relief—since it was actually, for +her nerves, a question of relief—that would cost her +least. If he had come to her moreover with the intention +she believed, or even if this intention had but +been determined in him by the spell of their situation, +he mustn't be mistaken about her value—for what +value did she now have? It throbbed within her as +she knelt there that she had none at all; though, holding +herself, not yet speaking, she tried, even in the +act, to recover what might be possible of it. With +that there came to her a light: wouldn't her value, +for the man who should marry her, be precisely in the +ravage of her disease? <i>She</i> mightn't last, but her +money would. For a man in whom the vision of her +money should be intense, in whom it should be most +of the ground for "making up" to her, any prospective +failure on her part to be long for this world might +easily count as a positive attraction. Such a man, +proposing to please, persuade, secure her, appropriate +her for such a time, shorter or longer, as nature +and the doctors should allow, would make the +best of her, ill, damaged, disagreeable though she +might be, for the sake of eventual benefits: she being +clearly a person of the sort esteemed likely to do +the handsome thing by a stricken and sorrowing +husband. +</p><p> +She had said to herself betimes, in a general way, +that whatever habits her youth might form, that of +seeing an interested suitor in every bush should certainly +never grow to be one of them—an attitude +she had early judged as ignoble, as poisonous. She +had had accordingly in fact as little to do with it +as possible and she scarce knew why at the present +moment she should have had to catch herself in the +act of imputing an ugly motive. It didn't sit, the +ugly motive, in Lord Mark's cool English eyes; the +darker side of it at any rate showed, to her imagination, +but briefly. Suspicion moreover, with this, +simplified itself: there was a beautiful reason—indeed +there were two—why her companion's motive +shouldn't matter. One was that even should he desire +her without a penny she wouldn't marry him +for the world; the other was that she felt him, after +all, perceptively, kindly, very pleasantly and humanly, +concerned for her. They were also two things, his +wishing to be well, to be very well, with her, and his +beginning to feel her as threatened, haunted, blighted; +but they were melting together for him, making him, +by their combination, only the more sure that, as he +probably called it to himself, he liked her. That was +presently what remained with her—his really doing +it; and with the natural and proper incident of being +conciliated by her weakness. Would she really have +had him—she could ask herself that—disconcerted +or disgusted by it? If he could only be touched +enough to do what she preferred, not to raise, not to +press any question, he might render her a much better +service than by merely enabling her to refuse him. +Again, again it was strange, but he figured to her for +the moment as the one safe sympathiser. It would +have made her worse to talk to others, but she wasn't +afraid with him of how he might wince and look pale. +She would keep him, that is, her one easy relation—in +the sense of easy for himself. Their actual outlook +had meanwhile such charm, what surrounded them +within and without did so much toward making appreciative +stillness as natural as at the opera, that +she could consider she hadn't made him hang on +her lips when at last, instead of saying if she were +well or ill, she repeated: "I go about here. I don't +get tired of it. I never should—it suits me so. I +adore the place," she went on, "and I don't want in +the least to give it up." +</p><p> +"Neither should I if I had your luck. Still, with +that luck, for one's <i>all</i>—! Should you positively like +to live here?" +</p><p> +"I think I should like," said poor Milly after an +instant, "to die here." +</p><p> +Which made him, precisely, laugh. That was what +she wanted—when a person did care: it was the +pleasant human way, without depths of darkness. +"Oh it's not good enough for <i>that!</i> That requires +picking. But can't you keep it? It is, you know, the +sort of place to see you in; you carry out the note, +fill it, people it, quite by yourself, and you might do +much worse—I mean for your friends—than show +yourself here a while, three or four months, every +year. But it's not my notion for the rest of the time. +One has quite other uses for you." +</p><p> +"What sort of a use for me is it," she smilingly +enquired, "to kill me?" +</p><p> +"Do you mean we should kill you in England?" +</p><p> +"Well, I've seen you and I'm afraid. You're too +much for me—too many. England bristles with questions. +This is more, as you say there, my form." +</p><p> +"Oho, oho!"—he laughed again as if to humour +her. "Can't you then buy it—for a price? Depend +upon it they'll treat for money. That is for money +enough." +</p><p> +"I've exactly," she said, "been wondering if they +won't. I think I shall try. But if I get it I shall cling +to it." They were talking sincerely. "It will be my +life—paid for as that. It will become my great +gilded shell; so that those who wish to find me must +come and hunt me up." +</p><p> +"Ah then you <i>will</i> be alive," said Lord Mark. +</p><p> +"Well, not quite extinct perhaps, but shrunken, +wasted, wizened; rattling about here like the dried +kernel of a nut." +</p><p> +"Oh," Lord Mark returned, "we, much as you +mistrust us, can do better for you than that." +</p><p> +"In the sense that you'll feel it better for me really +to have it over?" +</p><p> +He let her see now that she worried him, and after +a look at her, of some duration, without his glasses—which +always altered the expression of his eyes—he +re-settled the nippers on his nose and went back +to the view. But the view, in turn, soon enough released +him. "Do you remember something I said to +you that day at Matcham—or at least fully meant +to?" +</p><p> +"Oh yes, I remember everything at Matcham. +It's another life." +</p><p> +"Certainly it will be—I mean the kind of thing: +what I then wanted it to represent for you. Matcham, +you know," he continued, "is symbolic. I think I +tried to rub that into you a little." +</p><p> +She met him with the full memory of what he had +tried—not an inch, not an ounce of which was lost +to her. "What I meant is that it seems a hundred +years ago." +</p><p> +"Oh for me it comes in better. Perhaps a part of +what makes me remember it," he pursued, "is that +I was quite aware of what might have been said about +what I was doing. I wanted you to take it from me +that I should perhaps be able to look after you—well, +rather better. Rather better, of course, than +certain other persons in particular." +</p><p> +"Precisely—than Mrs. Lowder, than Miss Croy, +even than Mrs. Stringham." +</p><p> +"Oh Mrs. Stringham's all right!" Lord Mark +promptly amended. +</p><p> +It amused her even with what she had else to think +of; and she could show him at all events how little, +in spite of the hundred years, she had lost what he +alluded to. The way he was with her at this moment +made in fact the other moment so vivid as almost to +start again the tears it had started at the time. "You +could do so much for me, yes. I perfectly understood +you." +</p><p> +"I wanted, you see," he despite this explained, +"to <i>fix</i> your confidence. I mean, you know, in the +right place." +</p><p> +"Well, Lord Mark, you did—it's just exactly +now, my confidence, where you put it then. The only +difference," said Milly, "is that I seem now to have +no use for it. Besides," she then went on, "I do +seem to feel you disposed to act in a way that would +undermine it a little." +</p><p> +He took no more notice of these last words than if +she hadn't said them, only watching her at present +as with a gradual new light. "Are you <i>really</i> in any +trouble?" +</p><p> +To this, on her side, she gave no heed. Making +out his light was a little a light for herself. "Don't +say, don't try to say, anything that's impossible. +There are much better things you can do." +</p><p> +He looked straight at it and then straight over it. +"It's too monstrous that one can't ask you as a friend +what one wants so to know." +</p><p> +"What is it you want to know?" She spoke, as +by a sudden turn, with a slight hardness. "Do you +want to know if I'm badly ill?" +</p><p> +The sound of it in truth, though from no raising +of her voice, invested the idea with a kind of terror, +but a terror all for others. Lord Mark winced and +flushed—clearly couldn't help it; but he kept his +attitude together and spoke even with unwonted +vivacity. "Do you imagine I can see you suffer and +not say a word?" +</p><p> +"You won't see me suffer—don't be afraid. I +shan't be a public nuisance. That's why I should +have liked <i>this:</i> it's so beautiful in itself and yet it's +out of the gangway. You won't know anything about +anything," she added; and then as if to make with +decision an end: "And you <i>don't!</i> No, not even you." +He faced her through it with the remains of his expression, +and she saw him as clearly—for <i>him</i>—bewildered; +which made her wish to be sure not to +have been unkind. She would be kind once for all; +that would be the end. "I'm very badly ill." +</p><p> +"And you don't do anything?" +</p><p> +"I do everything. Everything's <i>this</i>," she smiled. +"I'm doing it now. One can't do more than live." +</p><p> +"Ah than live in the right way, no. But is that +what you do? Why haven't you advice?" +</p><p> +He had looked about at the rococo elegance as if +there were fifty things it didn't give her, so that he +suggested with urgency the most absent. But she +met his remedy with a smile. "I've the best advice +in the world. I'm acting under it now. I act upon +it in receiving you, in talking with you thus. One +can't, as I tell you, do more than live." +</p><p> +"Oh live!" Lord Mark ejaculated. +</p><p> +"Well, it's immense for <i>me</i>." She finally spoke +as if for amusement; now that she had uttered her +truth, that he had learnt it from herself as no one +had yet done, her emotion had, by the fact, dried up. +There she was; but it was as if she would never speak +again. "I shan't," she added, "have missed everything." +</p><p> +"Why should you have missed <i>anything?</i>" She +felt, as he sounded this, to what, within the minute, +he had made up his mind. "You're the person in +the world for whom that's least necessary; for whom +one would call it in fact most impossible; for whom +'missing' at all will surely require an extraordinary +amount of misplaced good will. Since you believe +in advice, for God's sake take <i>mine</i>. I know what +you want." +</p><p> +Oh she knew he would know it. But she had +brought it on herself—or almost. Yet she spoke with +kindness. "I think I want not to be too much worried." +</p><p> +"You want to be adored." It came at last straight. +"Nothing would worry you less. I mean as I shall do +it. It <i>is</i> so"—he firmly kept it up. "You're not +loved enough." +</p><p> +"Enough for what, Lord Mark?" +</p><p> +"Why to get the full good of it." +</p><p> +Well, she didn't after all mock at him. "I see +what you mean. That full good of it which consists +in finding one's self forced to love in return." She +had grasped it, but she hesitated. "Your idea is +that I might find myself forced to love <i>you?</i>" +</p><p> +"Oh 'forced'—!" He was so fine and so expert, +so awake to anything the least ridiculous, and of a +type with which the preaching of passion somehow so +ill consorted—he was so much all these things that +he had absolutely to take account of them himself. +And he did so, in a single intonation, beautifully. +Milly liked him again, liked him for such shades as +that, liked him so that it was woeful to see him spoiling +it, and still more woeful to have to rank him among +those minor charms of existence that she gasped at +moments to remember she must give up. "Is it inconceivable +to you that you might try?" +</p><p> +"To be so favourably affected by you—?" +</p><p> +"To believe in me. To believe in me," Lord Mark +repeated. +</p><p> +Again she hesitated. "To 'try' in return for your +trying?" +</p><p> +"Oh I shouldn't have to!" he quickly declared. +The prompt neat accent, however, his manner of +disposing of her question, failed of real expression, +as he himself the next moment intelligently, helplessly, +almost comically saw—a failure pointed +moreover by the laugh into which Milly was immediately +startled. As a suggestion to her of a healing +and uplifting passion it <i>was</i> in truth deficient; it +wouldn't do as the communication of a force that +should sweep them both away. And the beauty of +him was that he too, even in the act of persuasion, +of self-persuasion, could understand that, and could +thereby show but the better as fitting into the pleasant +commerce of prosperity. The way she let him +see that she looked at him was a thing to shut him +out, of itself, from services of danger, a thing that +made a discrimination against him never yet made—made +at least to any consciousness of his own. Born +to float in a sustaining air, this would be his first encounter +with a judgement formed in the sinister light +of tragedy. The gathering dusk of <i>her</i> personal world +presented itself to him, in her eyes, as an element in +which it was vain for him to pretend he could find +himself at home, since it was charged with depressions +and with dooms, with the chill of the losing game. +Almost without her needing to speak, and simply by +the fact that there could be, in such a case, no decent +substitute for a felt intensity, he had to take it from +her that practically he was afraid—whether afraid to +protest falsely enough, or only afraid of what might be +eventually disagreeable in a compromised alliance, +being a minor question. She believed she made out +besides, wonderful girl, that he had never quite expected +to have to protest about anything beyond his +natural convenience—more, in fine, than his disposition +and habits, his education as well, his personal +<i>moyens</i>, in short, permitted. His predicament +was therefore one he couldn't like, and also one she +willingly would have spared him hadn't he brought +it on himself. No man, she was quite aware, could +enjoy thus having it from her that he wasn't good +for what she would have called her reality. It wouldn't +have taken much more to enable her positively to +make out in him that he was virtually capable of hinting—had +his innermost feeling spoken—at the propriety +rather, in his interest, of some cutting down, +some dressing up, of the offensive real. He would meet +that halfway, but the real must also meet <i>him</i>. Milly's +sense of it for herself, which was so conspicuously, +so financially supported, couldn't, or wouldn't, so +accommodate him, and the perception of that fairly +showed in his face after a moment like the smart of a +blow. It had marked the one minute during which he +could again be touching to her. By the time he had +tried once more, after all, to insist, he had quite ceased +to be so. +</p><p> +By this time she had turned from their window to +make a diversion, had walked him through other +rooms, appealing again to the inner charm of the +place, going even so far for that purpose as to point +afresh her independent moral, to repeat that if one +only had such a house for one's own and loved it and +cherished it enough, it would pay one back in kind, +would close one in from harm. He quite grasped for +the quarter of an hour the perch she held out to him—grasped +it with one hand, that is, while she felt him +attached to his own clue with the other; he was by +no means either so sore or so stupid, to do him all +justice, as not to be able to behave more or less as if +nothing had happened. It was one of his merits, to +which she did justice too, that both his native and his +acquired notion of behaviour rested on the general +assumption that nothing—nothing to make a deadly +difference for him—ever <i>could</i> happen. It was, socially, +a working view like another, and it saw them +easily enough through the greater part of the rest of +their adventure. Downstairs again, however, with the +limit of his stay in sight, the sign of his smarting, +when all was said, reappeared for her—breaking out +moreover, with an effect of strangeness, in another +quite possibly sincere allusion to her state of health. +He might for that matter have been seeing what he +could do in the way of making it a grievance that she +should snub him for a charity, on his own part, exquisitely +roused. "It's true, you know, all the same, +and I don't care a straw for your trying to freeze one +up." He seemed to show her, poor man, bravely, how +little he cared. "Everybody knows affection often +makes things out when indifference doesn't notice. +And that's why I know that <i>I</i> notice." +</p><p> +"Are you sure you've got it right?" the girl smiled. +"I thought rather that affection was supposed to be +blind." +</p><p> +"Blind to faults, not to beauties," Lord Mark +promptly returned. +</p><p> +"And are my extremely private worries, my entirely +domestic complications, which I'm ashamed +to have given you a glimpse of—are they beauties?" +</p><p> +"Yes, for those who care for you—as every one +does. Everything about you is a beauty. Besides +which I don't believe," he declared, "in the seriousness +of what you tell me. It's too absurd you should +have <i>any</i> trouble about which something can't be +done. If you can't get the right thing, who can, in all +the world, I should like to know? You're the first +young woman of your time. I mean what I say." +He looked, to do him justice, quite as if he did; not +ardent, but clear—simply so competent, in such a +position, to compare, that his quiet assertion had +the force not so much perhaps of a tribute as of a +warrant. "We're all in love with you. I'll put it that +way, dropping any claim of my own, if you can bear +it better. I speak as one of the lot. You weren't born +simply to torment us—you were born to make us +happy. Therefore you must listen to us." +</p><p> +She shook her head with her slowness, but this +time with all her mildness. "No, I mustn't listen +to you—that's just what I mustn't do. The reason +is, please, that it simply kills me. I must be as attached +to you as you will, since you give that lovely +account of yourselves. I give you in return the +fullest possible belief of what it would be—" And +she pulled up a little. "I give and give and give—there +you are; stick to me as close as you like and see +if I don't. Only I can't listen or receive or accept—I +can't <i>agree</i>. I can't make a bargain. I can't +really. You must believe that from me. It's all I've +wanted to say to you, and why should it spoil anything?" +</p><p> +He let her question fall—though clearly, it might +have seemed, because, for reasons or for none, there +was so much that <i>was</i> spoiled. "You want somebody +of your own." He came back, whether in good +faith or in bad, to that; and it made her repeat her +headshake. He kept it up as if his faith were of +the best. "You want somebody, you want somebody." +</p><p> +She was to wonder afterwards if she hadn't been +at this juncture on the point of saying something +emphatic and vulgar—"Well, I don't at all events +want <i>you!</i>" What somehow happened, nevertheless, +the pity of it being greater than the irritation—the +sadness, to her vivid sense, of his being so painfully +astray, wandering in a desert in which there was +nothing to nourish him—was that his error amounted +to positive wrongdoing. She was moreover so acquainted +with quite another sphere of usefulness +for him that her having suffered him to insist almost +convicted her of indelicacy. Why hadn't she stopped +him off with her first impression of his purpose? +She could do so now only by the allusion she had been +wishing not to make. "Do you know I don't think +you're doing very right?—and as a thing quite apart, +I mean, from my listening to you. That's not right +either—except that I'm <i>not</i> listening. You oughtn't +to have come to Venice to see <i>me</i>—and in fact you've +not come, and you mustn't behave as if you had. +You've much older friends than I, and ever so much +better. Really, if you've come at all, you can only +have come—properly, and if I may say so honourably—for +the best friend, as I believe her to be, that +you have in the world." +</p><p> +When once she had said it he took it, oddly enough, +as if he had been more or less expecting it. Still, he +looked at her very hard, and they had a moment of +this during which neither pronounced a name, each +apparently determined that the other should. It was +Milly's fine coercion, in the event, that was the +stronger. "Miss Croy?" Lord Mark asked. +</p><p> +It might have been difficult to make out that she +smiled. "Mrs. Lowder." He did make out something, +and then fairly coloured for its attestation of +his comparative simplicity. "I call <i>her</i> on the whole +the best. I can't imagine a man's having a better." +</p><p> +Still with his eyes on her he turned it over. "Do +you want me to marry Mrs. Lowder?" +</p><p> +At which it seemed to her that it was he who was +almost vulgar! But she wouldn't in any way have +that. "You know, Lord Mark, what I mean. One +isn't in the least turning you out into the cold world. +There's no cold world for you at all, I think," she +went on; "nothing but a very warm and watchful +and expectant world that's waiting for you at any +moment you choose to take it up." +</p><p> +He never budged, but they were standing on the +polished concrete and he had within a few minutes +possessed himself again of his hat. "Do you want me +to marry Kate Croy?" +</p><p> +"Mrs. Lowder wants it—I do no wrong, I think, +in saying that; and she understands moreover that +you know she does." +</p><p> +Well, he showed how beautifully he could take it; +and it wasn't obscure to her, on her side, that it was +a comfort to deal with a gentleman. "It's ever so +kind of you to see such opportunities for me. But +what's the use of my tackling Miss Croy?" +</p><p> +Milly rejoiced on the spot to be so able to point +out. "Because she's the handsomest and cleverest +and most charming creature I ever saw, and because +if I were a man I should simply adore her. In fact +I do as it is." It was a luxury of response. +</p><p> +"Oh, my dear lady, plenty of people adore her. +But that can't further the case of <i>all.</i>" +</p><p> +"Ah," she went on, "I know about 'people.' If +the case of one's bad, the case of another's good. +I don't see what you have to fear from any one else," +she said, "save through your being foolish, this way, +about <i>me</i>." +</p><p> +So she said, but she was aware the next moment +of what he was making of what she didn't see. "Is +it your idea—since we're talking of these things in +these ways—that the young lady you describe in +such superlative terms is to be had for the asking?" +</p><p> +"Well, Lord Mark, try. She is a great person. +But don't be humble." She was almost gay. +</p><p> +It was this apparently, at last, that was too much +for him. "But don't you really <i>know?</i>" +</p><p> +As a challenge, practically, to the commonest intelligence +she could pretend to, it made her of course +wish to be fair. "I 'know' yes, that a particular person's +very much in love with her." +</p><p> +"Then you must know by the same token that she's +very much in love with a particular person." +</p><p> +"Ah I beg your pardon!"—and Milly quite +flushed at having so crude a blunder imputed to her. +"You're wholly mistaken." +</p><p> +"It's not true?" +</p><p> +"It's not true." +</p><p> +His stare became a smile. "Are you very, very +sure?" +</p><p> +"As sure as one can be"—and Milly's manner +could match it—"when one has every assurance. +I speak on the best authority." +</p><p> +He hesitated. "Mrs. Lowder's?" +</p><p> +"No. I don't call Mrs. Lowder's the best." +</p><p> +"Oh I thought you were just now saying," he +laughed, "that everything about her's so good." +</p><p> +"Good for you"—she was perfectly clear. "For +you," she went on, "let her authority be the best. +She doesn't believe what you mention, and you must +know yourself how little she makes of it. So you can +take it from her. <i>I</i> take it—" But Milly, with the +positive tremor of her emphasis, pulled up. +</p><p> +"You take it from Kate?" +</p><p> +"From Kate herself." +</p><p> +"That she's thinking of no one at all?" +</p><p> +"Of no one at all." Then, with her intensity, she +went on. "She has given me her word for it." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Lord Mark. To which he next added: +"And what do you call her word?" +</p><p> +It made Milly, on her side, stare—though perhaps +partly but with the instinct of gaining time for the +consciousness that she was already a little further +"in" than she had designed. "Why, Lord Mark, +what should <i>you</i> call her word?" +</p><p> +"Ah I'm not obliged to say. I've not asked her. +You apparently have." +</p><p> +Well, it threw her on her defence—a defence that +she felt, however, especially as of Kate. "We're very +intimate," she said in a moment; "so that, without +prying into each other's affairs, she naturally tells me +things." +</p><p> +Lord Mark smiled as at a lame conclusion. "You +mean then she made you of her own movement the +declaration you quote?" +</p><p> +Milly thought again, though with hindrance rather +than help in her sense of the way their eyes now met—met +as for their each seeing in the other more than +either said. What she most felt that she herself saw +was the strange disposition on her companion's part +to disparage Kate's veracity. She could be only concerned +to "stand up" for that. +</p><p> +"I mean what I say: that when she spoke of her +having no private interest—" +</p><p> +"She took her oath to you?" Lord Mark interrupted. +</p><p> +Milly didn't quite see why he should so catechise +her; but she met it again for Kate. "She left me in no +doubt whatever of her being free." +</p><p> +At this Lord Mark did look at her, though he continued +to smile. "And thereby in no doubt of <i>your</i> +being too?" It was as if as soon as he had said it, +however, he felt it as something of a mistake, and she +couldn't herself have told by what queer glare at him +she had instantly signified that. He at any rate gave +her glare no time to act further; he fell back on the +spot, and with a light enough movement, within his +rights. "That's all very well, but why in the world, +dear lady, should she be swearing to you?" +</p><p> +She had to take this "dear lady" as applying to +herself; which disconcerted her when he might now +so gracefully have used it for the aspersed Kate. +Once more it came to her that she must claim her own +part of the aspersion. "Because, as I've told you, +we're such tremendous friends." +</p><p> +"Oh," said Lord Mark, who for the moment looked +as if that might have stood rather for an absence of +such rigours. He was going, however, as if he had in +a manner, at the last, got more or less what he wanted. +Milly felt, while he addressed his next few words to +leave-taking, that she had given rather more than she +intended or than she should be able, when once more +getting herself into hand, theoretically to defend. +Strange enough in fact that he had had from her, +about herself—and, under the searching spell of the +place, infinitely straight—what no one else had had: +neither Kate, nor Aunt Maud, nor Merton Densher, +nor Susan Shepherd. He had made her within a +minute, in particular, she was aware, lose her presence +of mind, and she now wished he would take himself +off, so that she might either recover it or bear the +loss better in solitude. If he paused, however, she +almost at the same time saw, it was because of his +watching the approach, from the end of the sala, of +one of the gondoliers, who, whatever excursions were +appointed for the party with the attendance of the +others, always, as the most decorative, most sashed +and starched, remained at the palace on the theory +that she might whimsically want him—which she +never, in her caged freedom, had yet done. Brown +Pasquale, slipping in white shoes over the marble and +suggesting to her perpetually charmed vision she +could scarce say what, either a mild Hindoo, too +noiseless almost for her nerves, or simply a barefooted +seaman on the deck of a ship—Pasquale +offered to sight a small salver, which he obsequiously +held out to her with its burden of a visiting-card. +Lord Mark—and as if also for admiration of him—delayed +his departure to let her receive it; on which +she read it with the instant effect of another blow to +her presence of mind. This precarious quantity was +indeed now so gone that even for dealing with Pasquale +she had to do her best to conceal its disappearance. +The effort was made, none the less, by the time +she had asked if the gentleman were below and had +taken in the fact that he had come up. He had followed +the gondolier and was waiting at the top of the +staircase. +</p><p> +"I'll see him with pleasure." To which she added +for her companion, while Pasquale went off: "Mr. +Merton Densher." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Lord Mark—in a manner that, making +it resound through the great cool hall, might have +carried it even to Densher's ear as a judgement of his +identity heard and noted once before +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">BOOK EIGHTH</h2> +<br> +<h2 align="center">I</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +Densher became aware, afresh, that he disliked his +hotel—and all the more promptly that he had had +occasion of old to make the same discrimination. The +establishment, choked at that season with the polyglot +herd, cockneys of all climes, mainly German, +mainly American, mainly English, it appeared as the +corresponding sensitive nerve was touched, sounded +loud and not sweet, sounded anything and everything +but Italian, but Venetian. The Venetian was all a +dialect, he knew; yet it was pure Attic beside some of +the dialects at the bustling inn. It made, "abroad," +both for his pleasure and his pain that he had to feel +at almost any point how he had been through every thing +before. He had been three or four times, in Venice, +during other visits, through this pleasant irritation of +paddling away—away from the concert of false +notes in the vulgarised hall, away from the amiable +American families and overfed German porters. +He had in each case made terms for a lodging more +private and not more costly, and he recalled with tenderness +these shabby but friendly asylums, the windows +of which he should easily know again in passing +on canal or through campo. The shabbiest now failed +of an appeal to him, but he found himself at the end +of forty-eight hours forming views in respect to a +small independent <i>quartiere</i>, far down the Grand +Canal, which he had once occupied for a month with +a sense of pomp and circumstance and yet also with +a growth of initiation into the homelier Venetian +mysteries. The humour of those days came back to +him for an hour, and what further befell in this interval, +to be brief, was that, emerging on a traghetto in +sight of the recognised house, he made out on the +green shutters of his old, of his young windows the +strips of white pasted paper that figure in Venice as an +invitation to tenants. This was in the course of his +very first walk apart, a walk replete with impressions +to which he responded with force. He had been almost +without cessation, since his arrival, at Palazzo +Leporelli, where, as happened, a turn of bad weather +on the second day had kept the whole party continuously +at home. The episode had passed for him like +a series of hours in a museum, though without the +fatigue of that; and it had also resembled something +that he was still, with a stirred imagination, to find a +name for. He might have been looking for the name +while he gave himself up, subsequently, to the ramble—he +saw that even after years he couldn't lose his +way—crowned with his stare across the water at the +little white papers. +</p><p> +He was to dine at the palace in an hour or two, and +he had lunched there, at an early luncheon, that morning. +He had then been out with the three ladies, the +three being Mrs. Lowder, Mrs. Stringham and Kate, +and had kept afloat with them, under a sufficient +Venetian spell, until Aunt Maud had directed him to +leave them and return to Miss Theale. Of two circumstances +connected with this disposition of his +person he was even now not unmindful; the first being +that the lady of Lancaster Gate had addressed him +with high publicity and as if expressing equally the +sense of her companions, who had not spoken, but +who might have been taken—yes, Susan Shepherd +quite equally with Kate—for inscrutable parties to +her plan. What he could as little contrive to forget +was that he had, before the two others, as it struck +him—that was to say especially before Kate—done +exactly as he was bidden; gathered himself up without +a protest and retraced his way to the palace. +Present with him still was the question of whether he +looked a fool for it, of whether the awkwardness he +felt as the gondola rocked with the business of his +leaving it—they could but make, in submission, for a +landing-place that was none of the best—had furnished +his friends with such entertainment as was to +cause them, behind his back, to exchange intelligent +smiles. He had found Milly Theale twenty minutes +later alone, and he had sat with her till the others returned +to tea. The strange part of this was that it had +been very easy, extraordinarily easy. He knew it for +strange only when he was away from her, because +when he was away from her he was in contact with +particular things that made it so. At the time, in her +presence, it was as simple as sitting with his sister +might have been, and not, if the point were urged, +very much more thrilling. He continued to see her as +he had first seen her—that remained ineffaceably +behind. Mrs. Lowder, Susan Shepherd, his own +Kate, might, each in proportion, see her as a princess, +as an angel, as a star, but for himself, luckily, she +hadn't as yet complications to any point of discomfort: +the princess, the angel, the star, were muffled +over, ever so lightly and brightly, with the little American +girl who had been kind to him in New York and +to whom certainly—though without making too +much of it for either of them—he was perfectly willing +to be kind in return. She appreciated his coming in +on purpose, but there was nothing in that—from the +moment she was always at home—that they couldn't +easily keep up. The only note the least bit high that +had even yet sounded between them was this admission +on her part that she found it best to remain +within. She wouldn't let him call it keeping quiet, +for she insisted that her palace—with all its romance +and art and history—had set up round her a whirlwind +of suggestion that never dropped for an hour. +It wasn't therefore, within such walls, confinement, +it was the freedom of all the centuries: in respect to +which Densher granted good-humouredly that they +were then blown together, she and he, as much as she +liked, through space. +</p><p> +Kate had found on the present occasion a moment +to say to him that he suggested a clever cousin calling +on a cousin afflicted, and bored for his pains; and +though he denied on the spot the "bored" he could so +far see it as an impression he might make that he +wondered if the same image wouldn't have occurred +to Milly. As soon as Kate appeared again the difference +came up—the oddity, as he then instantly felt +it, of his having sunk so deep. It was sinking because +it was all doing what Kate had conceived for him; it +wasn't in the least doing—and that had been his +notion of his life—anything he himself had conceived. +The difference, accordingly, renewed, sharp, +sore, was the irritant under which he had quitted the +palace and under which he was to make the best of +the business of again dining there. He said to himself +that he must make the best of everything; that was in +his mind, at the traghetto, even while, with his preoccupation +about changing quarters, he studied, +across the canal, the look of his former abode. It had +done for the past, would it do for the present? would +it play in any manner into the general necessity of +which he was conscious? That necessity of making +the best was the instinct—as he indeed himself knew—of +a man somehow aware that if he let go at one +place he should let go everywhere. If he took off his +hand, the hand that at least helped to hold it together, +the whole queer fabric that built him in would fall +away in a minute and admit the light. It was really a +matter of nerves; it was exactly because he was nervous +that he <i>could</i> go straight; yet if that condition +should increase he must surely go wild. He was walking +in short on a high ridge, steep down on either side, +where the proprieties—once he could face at all remaining +there—reduced themselves to his keeping +his head. It was Kate who had so perched him, and +there came up for him at moments, as he found himself +planting one foot exactly before another, a sensible +sharpness of irony as to her management of him. +It wasn't that she had put him in danger—to be in +real danger with her would have had another quality. +There glowed for him in fact a kind of rage at what +he wasn't having; an exasperation, a resentment, begotten +truly by the very impatience of desire, in respect +to his postponed and relegated, his so extremely manipulated +state. It was beautifully done of her, but +what was the real meaning of it unless that he was perpetually +bent to her will? His idea from the first, +from the very first of his knowing her, had been to be, +as the French called it, <i>bon prince</i> with her, mindful +of the good humour and generosity, the contempt, in +the matter of confidence, for small outlays and small +savings, that belonged to the man who wasn't generally +afraid. There were things enough, goodness knew—for +it was the moral of his plight—that he couldn't +afford; but what had had a charm for him if not +the notion of living handsomely, to make up for it, in +another way? of not at all events reading the romance +of his existence in a cheap edition. All he had originally +felt in her came back to him, was indeed actually +as present as ever—how he had admired and +envied what he called to himself her pure talent for +life, as distinguished from his own, a poor weak thing +of the occasion, amateurishly patched up; only it +irritated him the more that this was exactly what was +now, ever so characteristically, standing out in her. +</p><p> +It was thanks to her pure talent for life, verily, +that he was just where he was and that he was above +all just <i>how</i> he was. The proof of a decent reaction +in him against so much passivity was, with no great +richness, that he at least knew—knew, that is, how +he was, and how little he liked it as a thing accepted +in mere helplessness. He was, for the moment, wistful—that +above all described it; that was so large a part +of the force that, as the autumn afternoon closed in, +kept him, on his traghetto, positively throbbing with +his question. His question connected itself, even while +he stood, with his special smothered soreness, his sense +almost of shame; and the soreness and the shame were +less as he let himself, with the help of the conditions +about him, regard it as serious. It was born, for that +matter, partly of the conditions, those conditions that +Kate had so almost insolently braved, had been willing, +without a pang, to see him ridiculously—ridiculously +so far as just complacently—exposed to. How +little it <i>could</i> be complacently he was to feel with the +last thoroughness before he had moved from his point +of vantage. His question, as we have called it, was the +interesting question of whether he had really no will +left. How could he know—that was the point—without +putting the matter to the test? It had been +right to be <i>bon prince,</i> and the joy, something of the +pride, of having lived, in spirit, handsomely, was even +now compatible with the impulse to look into their +account; but he held his breath a little as it came +home to him with supreme sharpness that, whereas +he had done absolutely everything that Kate had +wanted, she had done nothing whatever that he had. +So it was in fine that his idea of the test by which he +must try that possibility kept referring itself, in the +warm early dusk, the approach of the Southern night—"conditions" +these, such as we just spoke of—to +the glimmer, more and more ghostly as the light failed, +of the little white papers on his old green shutters. +By the time he looked at his watch he had been for a +quarter of an hour at this post of observation and reflexion; +but by the time he walked away again he had +found his answer to the idea that had grown so importunate. +Since a proof of his will was wanted it was +indeed very exactly in wait for him—it lurked there +on the other side of the Canal. A ferryman at the little +pier had from time to time accosted him; but it was +a part of the play of his nervousness to turn his back +on that facility. He would go over, but he walked, +very quickly, round and round, crossing finally by the +Rialto. The rooms, in the event, were unoccupied; the +ancient padrona was there with her smile all a radiance +but her recognition all a fable; the ancient rickety +objects too, refined in their shabbiness, amiable in their +decay, as to which, on his side, demonstrations were +tenderly veracious; so that before he took his way again +he had arranged to come in on the morrow. +</p><p> +He was amusing about it that evening at dinner—in +spite of an odd first impulse, which at the palace +quite melted away, to treat it merely as matter for his +own satisfaction. This need, this propriety, he had +taken for granted even up to the moment of suddenly +perceiving, in the course of talk, that the incident +would minister to innocent gaiety. Such was quite its +effect, with the aid of his picture—an evocation of the +quaint, of the humblest rococo, of a Venetian interior +in the true old note. He made the point for his hostess +that her own high chambers, though they were a thousand +grand things, weren't really this; made it in fact +with such success that she presently declared it his +plain duty to invite her on some near day to tea. She +had expressed as yet—he could feel it as felt among +them all—no such clear wish to go anywhere, not even +to make an effort for a parish feast, or an autumn +sunset, nor to descend her staircase for Titian or +Gianbellini. It was constantly Densher's view that, +as between himself and Kate, things were understood +without saying, so that he could catch in her, as she +but too freely could in him, innumerable signs of it, +the whole soft breath of consciousness meeting and +promoting consciousness. This view was so far justified +to-night as that Milly's offer to him of her company +was to his sense taken up by Kate in spite of her +doing nothing to show it. It fell in so perfectly with +what she had desired and foretold that she was—and +this was what most struck him—sufficiently gratified +and blinded by it not to know, from the false quality +of his response, from his tone and his very look, which +for an instant instinctively sought her own, that he +had answered inevitably, almost shamelessly, in a mere +time-gaining sense. It gave him on the spot, her failure +of perception, almost a beginning of the advantage +he had been planning for—that is at least if she too +were not darkly dishonest. She might, he was not unaware, +have made out, from some deep part of her, +the bearing, in respect to herself, of the little fact he had +announced; for she was after all capable of that, capable +of guessing and yet of simultaneously hiding her +guess. It wound him up a turn or two further, none +the less, to impute to her now a weakness of vision by +which he could himself feel the stronger. Whatever +apprehension of his motive in shifting his abode might +have brushed her with its wings, she at all events certainly +didn't guess that he was giving their friend a hollow +promise. That was what she had herself imposed +on him; there had been in the prospect from the first +a definite particular point at which hollowness, to call +it by its least compromising name, would have to begin. +Therefore its hour had now charmingly sounded. +Whatever in life he had recovered his old rooms +for, he had not recovered them to receive Milly +Theale: which made no more difference in his expression +of happy readiness than if he had been—just +what he was trying not to be—fully hardened +and fully base. So rapid in fact was the rhythm of his +inward drama that the quick vision of impossibility +produced in him by his hostess's direct and unexpected +appeal had the effect, slightly sinister, of positively +scaring him. It gave him a measure of the intensity, +the reality of his now mature motive. It +prompted in him certainly no quarrel with these +things, but it made them as vivid as if they already +flushed with success. It was before the flush of success +that his heart beat almost to dread. The dread was +but the dread of the happiness to be compassed; only +that was in itself a symptom. That a visit from Milly +should, in this projection of necessities, strike him as +of the last incongruity, quite as a hateful idea, and +above all as spoiling, should one put it grossly, his +game—the adoption of such a view might of course +have an identity with one of those numerous ways of +being a fool that seemed so to abound for him. It +would remain none the less the way to which he should +be in advance most reconciled. His mature motive, +as to which he allowed himself no grain of illusion, +had thus in an hour taken imaginative possession of +the place: that precisely was how he saw it seated +there, already unpacked and settled, for Milly's innocence, +for Milly's beauty, no matter how short a time, +to be housed with. There were things she would +never recognise, never feel, never catch in the air; but +this made no difference in the fact that her brushing +against them would do nobody any good. The discrimination +and the scruple were for <i>him</i>. So he felt +all the parts of the case together, while Kate showed +admirably as feeling none of them. Of course, however—when +hadn't it to be his last word?—Kate +was always sublime. +</p><p> +That came up in all connexions during the rest of +these first days; came up in especial under pressure +of the fact that each time our plighted pair snatched, +in its passage, at the good fortune of half an hour together, +they were doomed—though Densher felt it as +all by <i>his</i> act—to spend a part of the rare occasion in +wonder at their luck and in study of its queer character. +This was the case after he might be supposed to +have got, in a manner, used to it; it was the case after +the girl—ready always, as we say, with the last word—had +given him the benefit of her righting of every +wrong appearance, a support familiar to him now in +reference to other phases. It was still the case after he +possibly might, with a little imagination, as she freely +insisted, have made out, by the visible working of the +crisis, what idea on Mrs. Lowder's part had determined +it. Such as the idea was—and that it suited +Kate's own book she openly professed—he had only +to see how things were turning out to feel it strikingly +justified. Densher's reply to all this vividness was that +of course Aunt Maud's intervention hadn't been occult, +even for <i>his</i> vividness, from the moment she had +written him, with characteristic concentration, that if +he should see his way to come to Venice for a fortnight +she should engage he would find it no blunder. It took +Aunt Maud really to do such things in such ways; just +as it took him, he was ready to confess, to do such +others as he must now strike them all—didn't he?—as +committed to. Mrs. Lowder's admonition had been +of course a direct reference to what she had said to him +at Lancaster Gate before his departure the night +Milly had failed them through illness; only it had at +least matched that remarkable outbreak in respect to +the quantity of good nature it attributed to him. The +young man's discussions of his situation—which +were confined to Kate; he had none with Aunt Maud +herself—suffered a little, it may be divined, by the +sense that he couldn't put everything off, as he privately +expressed it, on other people. His ears, in solitude, +were apt to burn with the reflexion that Mrs. Lowder +had simply tested him, seen him as he was and +made out what could be done with him. She had had +but to whistle for him and he had come. If she had +taken for granted his good nature she was as justified +as Kate declared. This awkwardness of his conscience, +both in respect to his general plasticity, the +fruit of his feeling plasticity, within limits, to be a +mode of life like another—certainly better than some, +and particularly in respect to such confusion as might +reign about what he had really come for—this inward +ache was not wholly dispelled by the style, +charming as that was, of Kate's poetic versions. Even +the high wonder and delight of Kate couldn't set him +right with himself when there was something quite +distinct from these things that kept him wrong. +</p><p> +In default of being right with himself he had meanwhile, +for one thing, the interest of seeing—and quite +for the first time in his life—whether, on a given occasion, +that might be quite so necessary to happiness as +was commonly assumed and as he had up to this moment +never doubted. He was engaged distinctly in an +adventure—he who had never thought himself cut +out for them, and it fairly helped him that he was able +at moments to say to himself that he mustn't fall below +it. At his hotel, alone, by night, or in the course of +the few late strolls he was finding time to take through +dusky labyrinthine alleys and empty <i>campi</i>, overhung +with mouldering palaces, where he paused in disgust +at his want of ease and where the sound of a rare footstep +on the enclosed pavement was like that of a retarded +dancer in a banquet-hall deserted—during +these interludes he entertained cold views, even to the +point, at moments, on the principle that the shortest +follies are the best, of thinking of immediate departure +as not only possible but as indicated. He had however +only to cross again the threshold of Palazzo Leporelli +to see all the elements of the business compose, +as painters called it, differently. It began to strike +him then that departure wouldn't curtail, but would +signally coarsen his folly, and that above all, as he +hadn't really "begun" anything, had only submitted, +consented, but too generously indulged and condoned +the beginnings of others, he had no call to treat himself +with superstitious rigour. The single thing that +was clear in complications was that, whatever happened, +one was to behave as a gentleman—to which +was added indeed the perhaps slightly less shining +truth that complications might sometimes have their +tedium beguiled by a study of the question of how a +gentleman would behave. This question, I hasten to +add, was not in the last resort Densher's greatest +worry. Three women were looking to him at once, +and, though such a predicament could never be, from +the point of view of facility, quite the ideal, it yet had, +thank goodness, its immediate workable law. The +law was not to be a brute—in return for amiabilities. +He hadn't come all the way out from England to be a +brute. He hadn't thought of what it might give him +to have a fortnight, however handicapped, with Kate +in Venice, to be a brute. He hadn't treated Mrs. +Lowder as if in responding to her suggestion he had +understood her—he hadn't done that either to be a +brute. And what he had prepared least of all for such +an anti-climax was the prompt and inevitable, the +achieved surrender—<i>as</i> a gentleman, oh that indubitably!—to +the unexpected impression made by +poor pale exquisite Milly as the mistress of a grand +old palace and the dispenser of an hospitality more +irresistible, thanks to all the conditions, than any ever +known to him. +</p><p> +This spectacle had for him an eloquence, an authority, +a felicity—he scarce knew by what strange +name to call it—for which he said to himself that +he had not consciously bargained. Her welcome, +her frankness, sweetness, sadness, brightness, her +disconcerting poetry, as he made shift at moments +to call it, helped as it was by the beauty of her whole +setting and by the perception at the same time, on +the observer's part, that this element gained from +her, in a manner, for effect and harmony, as much as +it gave—her whole attitude had, to his imagination, +meanings that hung about it, waiting upon her, hovering, +dropping and quavering forth again, like vague +faint snatches, mere ghosts of sound, of old-fashioned +melancholy music. It was positively well for him, he +had his times of reflecting, that he couldn't put it off +on Kate and Mrs. Lowder, as a gentleman so conspicuously +wouldn't, that—well, that he had been +rather taken in by not having known in advance! +There had been now five days of it all without his +risking even to Kate alone any hint of what he ought +to have known and of what in particular therefore +had taken him in. The truth was doubtless that really, +when it came to any free handling and naming of +things, they were living together, the five of them, +in an air in which an ugly effect of "blurting out" +might easily be produced. He came back with his +friend on each occasion to the blest miracle of renewed +propinquity, which had a double virtue in that +favouring air. He breathed on it as if he could +scarcely believe it, yet the time had passed, in spite +of this privilege, without his quite committing himself, +for her ear, to any such comment on Milly's +high style and state as would have corresponded with +the amount of recognition it had produced in him. +Behind everything for him was his renewed remembrance, +which had fairly become a habit, that he had +been the first to know her. This was what they had all +insisted on, in her absence, that day at Mrs. Lowder's; +and this was in especial what had made him feel its +influence on his immediately paying her a second +visit. Its influence had been all there, been in the +high-hung, rumbling carriage with them, from the +moment she took him to drive, covering them in together +as if it had been a rug of softest silk. It had +worked as a clear connexion with something lodged +in the past, something already their own. He had +more than once recalled how he had said to himself +even at that moment, at some point in the drive, that +he was not <i>there</i>, not just as he was in so doing it, +through Kate and Kate's idea, but through Milly and +Milly's own, and through himself and <i>his</i> own, unmistakeably—as +well as through the little facts, +whatever they had amounted to, of his time in New +York. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">II</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +There was at last, with everything that made for it, +an occasion when he got from Kate, on what she now +spoke of as his eternal refrain, an answer of which +he was to measure afterwards the precipitating effect. +His eternal refrain was the way he came back to the +riddle of Mrs. Lowder's view of her profit—a view +so hard to reconcile with the chances she gave them +to meet. Impatiently, at this, the girl denied the +chances, wanting to know from him, with a fine irony +that smote him rather straight, whether he felt their +opportunities as anything so grand. He looked at her +deep in the eyes when she had sounded this note; it +was the least he could let her off with for having made +him visibly flush. For some reason then, with it, the +sharpness dropped out of her tone, which became sweet +and sincere. "'Meet,' my dear man," she expressively +echoed; "does it strike you that we get, after all, so +very much out of our meetings?" +</p><p> +"On the contrary—they're starvation diet. All +I mean is—and it's all I've meant from the day I +came—that we at least get more than Aunt Maud." +</p><p> +"Ah but you see," Kate replied, "you don't understand +what Aunt Maud gets." +</p><p> +"Exactly so—and it's what I don't understand +that keeps me so fascinated with the question. <i>She</i> +gives me no light; she's prodigious. She takes everything +as of a natural—!" +</p><p> +"She takes it as 'of a natural' that at this rate +I shall be making my reflexions about you. There's +every appearance for her," Kate went on, "that what +she had made her mind up to as possible is possible; +that what she had thought more likely than not to +happen is happening. The very essence of her, as +you surely by this time have made out for yourself, +is that when she adopts a view she—well, to her +own sense, really brings the thing about, fairly terrorizes +with her view any other, any opposite view, and +those, not less, who represent that. I've often thought +success comes to her"—Kate continued to study the +phenomenon—"by the spirit in her that dares and +defies her idea not to prove the right one. One has +seen it so again and again, in the face of everything, +become the right one." +</p><p> +Densher had for this, as he listened, a smile of the +largest response. "Ah my dear child, if you can explain +I of course needn't not 'understand.' I'm condemned +to that," he on his side presently explained, +"only when understanding fails." He took a moment; +then he pursued: "Does she think she terrorises +<i>us?</i>" To which he added while, without immediate +speech, Kate but looked over the place: "Does she +believe anything so stiff as that you've really changed +about me?" He knew now that he was probing the +girl deep—something told him so; but that was a +reason the more. "Has she got it into her head that +you dislike me?" +</p><p> +To this, of a sudden, Kate's answer was strong. +"You could yourself easily put it there!" +</p><p> +He wondered. "By telling her so?" +</p><p> +"No," said Kate as with amusement at his simplicity; +"I don't ask that of you." +</p><p> +"Oh my dear," Densher laughed, "when you ask, +you know, so little—!" +</p><p> +There was a full irony in this, on his own part, +that he saw her resist the impulse to take up. "I'm +perfectly justified in what I've asked," she quietly +returned. "It's doing beautifully for you." Their +eyes again intimately met, and the effect was to make +her proceed. "You're not a bit unhappy." +</p><p> +"Oh ain't I?" he brought out very roundly. +</p><p> +"It doesn't practically show—which is enough +for Aunt Maud. You're wonderful, you're beautiful," +Kate said; "and if you really want to know +whether I believe you're doing it you may take from +me perfectly that I see it coming." With which, by +a quick transition, as if she had settled the case, she +asked him the hour. +</p><p> +"Oh only twelve-ten"—he had looked at his +watch. "We've taken but thirteen minutes; we've +time yet." +</p><p> +"Then we must walk. We must go toward them." +</p><p> +Densher, from where they had been standing, +measured the long reach of the Square. "They're +still in their shop. They're safe for half an hour." +</p><p> +"That shows then, that shows!" said Kate. +</p><p> +This colloquy had taken place in the middle of +Piazza San Marco, always, as a great social saloon, +a smooth-floored, blue-roofed chamber of amenity, +favourable to talk; or rather, to be exact, not in the +middle, but at the point where our pair had paused +by a common impulse after leaving the great mosque-like +church. It rose now, domed and pinnacled, but +a little way behind them, and they had in front the +vast empty space, enclosed by its arcades, to which at +that hour movement and traffic were mostly confined. +Venice was at breakfast, the Venice of the +visitor and the possible acquaintance, and, except +for the parties of importunate pigeons picking up the +crumbs of perpetual feasts, their prospect was clear +and they could see their companions hadn't yet been, +and weren't for a while longer likely to be, disgorged +by the lace-shop, in one of the <i>loggie</i>, where, shortly +before, they had left them for a look-in—the expression +was artfully Densher's—at Saint Mark's. +Their morning had happened to take such a turn as +brought this chance to the surface; yet his allusion, +just made to Kate, hadn't been an overstatement of +their general opportunity. The worst that could be +said of their general opportunity was that it was essentially +in presence—in presence of every one; every +one consisting at this juncture, in a peopled world, +of Susan Shepherd, Aunt Maud and Milly. But the +proof how, even in presence, the opportunity could +become special was furnished precisely by this view +of the compatibility of their comfort with a certain +amount of lingering. The others had assented to +their not waiting in the shop; it was of course the +least the others could do. What had really helped +them this morning was the fact that, on his turning +up, as he always called it, at the palace, Milly had +not, as before, been able to present herself. Custom +and use had hitherto seemed fairly established; +on his coming round, day after day—eight days had +been now so conveniently marked—their friends, +Milly's and his, conveniently dispersed and left him +to sit with her till luncheon. Such was the perfect +operation of the scheme on which he had been, as +he phrased it to himself, had out; so that certainly +there was that amount of justification for Kate's +vision of success. He <i>had</i>, for Mrs. Lowder—he +couldn't help it while sitting there—the air, which +was the thing to be desired, of no absorption in Kate +sufficiently deep to be alarming. He had failed their +young hostess each morning as little as she had failed +him; it was only to-day that she hadn't been well +enough to see him. +</p><p> +That had made a mark, all round; the mark was +in the way in which, gathered in the room of state, +with the place, from the right time, all bright and +cool and beflowered, as always, to receive her descent, +they—the rest of them—simply looked at each +other. It was lurid—lurid, in all probability, for +each of them privately—that they had uttered no +common regrets. It was strange for our young man +above all that, if the poor girl was indisposed to <i>that</i> +degree, the hush of gravity, of apprehension, of significance +of some sort, should be the most the case—that +of the guests—could permit itself. The hush, +for that matter, continued after the party of four had +gone down to the gondola and taken their places in it. +Milly had sent them word that she hoped they would +go out and enjoy themselves, and this indeed had produced +a second remarkable look, a look as of their +knowing, one quite as well as the other, what such +a message meant as provision for the alternative beguilement +of Densher. She wished not to have spoiled +his morning, and he had therefore, in civility, to take +it as pleasantly patched up. Mrs. Stringham had +helped the affair out, Mrs. Stringham who, when it +came to that, knew their friend better than any of +them. She knew her so well that she knew herself +as acting in exquisite compliance with conditions +comparatively obscure, approximately awful to them, +by not thinking it necessary to stay at home. She had +corrected that element of the perfunctory which was +the slight fault, for all of them, of the occasion; she +had invented a preference for Mrs. Lowder and herself; +she had remembered the fond dreams of the visitation +of lace that had hitherto always been brushed +away by accidents, and it had come up as well for +her that Kate had, the day before, spoken of the +part played by fatality in her own failure of real +acquaintance with the inside of Saint Mark's. Densher's +sense of Susan Shepherd's conscious intervention +had by this time a corner of his mind all to itself; +something that had begun for them at Lancaster +Gate was now a sentiment clothed in a shape; +her action, ineffably discreet, had at all events a way +of affecting him as for the most part subtly, even +when not superficially, in his own interest. They +were not, as a pair, as a "team," really united; there +were too many persons, at least three, and too many +things, between them; but meanwhile something was +preparing that would draw them closer. He scarce +knew what: probably nothing but his finding, at some +hour when it would be a service to do so, that she had +all the while understood him. He even had a presentiment +of a juncture at which the understanding +of every one else would fail and this deep little person's +alone survive. +</p><p> +Such was to-day, in its freshness, the moral air, as +we may say, that hung about our young friends; +these had been the small accidents and quiet forces +to which they owed the advantage we have seen them +in some sort enjoying. It seemed in fact fairly to +deepen for them as they stayed their course again; +the splendid Square, which had so notoriously, in all +the years, witnessed more of the joy of life than any +equal area in Europe, furnished them, in their remoteness +from earshot, with solitude and security. +It was as if, being in possession, they could say what +they liked; and it was also as if, in consequence of +that, each had an apprehension of what the other +wanted to say. It was most of all for them, moreover, +as if this very quantity, seated on their lips in +the bright historic air, where the only sign for their +ears was the flutter of the doves, begot in the heart +of each a fear. There might have been a betrayal of +that in the way Densher broke the silence resting +on her last words. "What did you mean just now +that I can do to make Mrs. Lowder believe? For +myself, stupidly, if you will, I don't see, from the +moment I can't lie to her, what else there is but +lying." +</p><p> +Well, she could tell him. "You can say something +both handsome and sincere to her about Milly—whom +you honestly like so much. That wouldn't +be lying; and, coming from you, it would have an +effect. You don't, you know, say much about her." +</p><p> +And Kate put before him the fruit of observation. +"You don't, you know, speak of her at all." +</p><p> +"And has Aunt Maud," Densher asked, "told +you so?" Then as the girl, for answer, only seemed +to bethink herself, "You must have extraordinary +conversations!" he exclaimed. +</p><p> +Yes, she had bethought herself. "We have extraordinary +conversations." +</p><p> +His look, while their eyes met, marked him as disposed +to hear more about them; but there was something +in her own, apparently, that defeated the +opportunity. He questioned her in a moment on a +different matter, which had been in his mind a week, +yet in respect to which he had had no chance so good +as this. "Do you happen to know then, as such wonderful +things pass between you, what she makes +of the incident, the other day, of Lord Mark's so very +superficial visit?—his having spent here, as I gather, +but the two or three hours necessary for seeing our +friend and yet taken no time at all, since he went off +by the same night's train, for seeing any one else. +What can she make of his not having waited to see +<i>you</i>, or to see herself—with all he owes her?" +</p><p> +"Oh of course," said Kate, "she understands. He +came to make Milly his offer of marriage—he came +for nothing but that. As Milly wholly declined it his +business was for the time at an end. He couldn't +quite on the spot turn round to make up to <i>us</i>." +</p><p> +Kate had looked surprised that, as a matter of +taste on such an adventurer's part, Densher shouldn't +see it. But Densher was lost in another thought. "Do +you mean that when, turning up myself, I found him +leaving her, that was what had been taking place between +them?" +</p><p> +"Didn't you make it out, my dear?" Kate enquired. +</p><p> +"What sort of a blundering weathercock then <i>is</i> +he?" the young man went on in his wonder. +</p><p> +"Oh don't make too little of him!" Kate smiled. +"Do you pretend that Milly didn't tell you?" +</p><p> +"How great an ass he had made of himself?" +</p><p> +Kate continued to smile. "You <i>are</i> in love with +her, you know." +</p><p> +He gave her another long look. "Why, since she +has refused him, should my opinion of Lord Mark +show it? I'm not obliged, however, to think well of +him for such treatment of the other persons I've +mentioned, and I feel I don't understand from you +why Mrs. Lowder should." +</p><p> +"She doesn't—but she doesn't care," Kate explained. +"You know perfectly the terms on which +lots of London people live together even when they're +supposed to live very well. He's not committed +to us—he was having his try. Mayn't an unsatisfied +man," she asked, "always have his try?" +</p><p> +"And come back afterwards, with confidence in +a welcome, to the victim of his inconstancy?" +</p><p> +Kate consented, as for argument, to be thought of +as a victim. "Oh but he has <i>had</i> his try at <i>me</i>. So +it's all right." +</p><p> +"Through your also having, you mean, refused +him?" +</p><p> +She balanced an instant during which Densher +might have just wondered if pure historic truth were +to suffer a slight strain. But she dropped on the right +side. "I haven't let it come to that. I've been too +discouraging. Aunt Maud," she went on—now as +lucid as ever—"considers, no doubt, that she has +a pledge from him in respect to me; a pledge that +would have been broken if Milly had accepted him. +As the case stands that makes no difference." +</p><p> +Densher laughed out. "It isn't <i>his</i> merit that he +has failed." +</p><p> +"It's still his merit, my dear, that he's Lord Mark. +He's just what he was, and what he knew he was. It's +not for me either to reflect on him after I've so treated +him." +</p><p> +"Oh," said Densher impatiently, "you've treated +him beautifully." +</p><p> +"I'm glad," she smiled, "that you can still be +jealous." But before he could take it up she had more +to say. "I don't see why it need puzzle you that Milly's +so marked line gratifies Aunt Maud more than anything +else can displease her. What does she see but +that Milly herself recognises her situation with you +as too precious to be spoiled? Such a recognition as +that can't but seem to her to involve in some degree +your own recognition. Out of which she therefore +gets it that the more you have for Milly the less you +have for me." +</p><p> +There were moments again—we know that from +the first they had been numerous—when he felt with +a strange mixed passion the mastery of her mere way +of putting things. There was something in it that +bent him at once to conviction and to reaction. And +this effect, however it be named, now broke into his +tone. "Oh if she began to know what I have for +you—!" +</p><p> +It wasn't ambiguous, but Kate stood up to it. +"Luckily for us we may really consider she doesn't. +So successful have we been." +</p><p> +"Well," he presently said, "I take from you what +you give me, and I suppose that, to be consistent—to +stand on my feet where I do stand at all—I ought +to thank you. Only, you know, what you give me +seems to me, more than anything else, the larger and +larger size of my job. It seems to me more than anything +else what you expect of me. It never seems to +me somehow what I may expect of <i>you</i>. There's so +much you <i>don't</i> give me." +</p><p> +She appeared to wonder. "And pray what is it I +don't—?" +</p><p> +"I give you proof," said Densher. "You give me +none." +</p><p> +"What then do you call proof?" she after a moment +ventured to ask. +</p><p> +"Your doing something for me." +</p><p> +She considered with surprise. "Am I not doing +<i>this</i> for you? Do you call this nothing?" +</p><p> +"Nothing at all." +</p><p> +"Ah I risk, my dear, everything for it." +</p><p> +They had strolled slowly further, but he was +brought up short. "I thought you exactly contend +that, with your aunt so bamboozled, you risk nothing!" +</p><p> +It was the first time since the launching of her wonderful +idea that he had seen her at a loss. He judged +the next instant moreover that she didn't like it—either +the being so or the being seen, for she soon +spoke with an impatience that showed her as wounded; +an appearance that produced in himself, he no less +quickly felt, a sharp pang of indulgence. "What +then do you wish me to risk?" +</p><p> +The appeal from danger touched him, but all to +make him, as he would have said, worse. "What +I wish is to be loved. How can I feel at this rate +that I <i>am</i>?" Oh she understood him, for all she +might so bravely disguise it, and that made him feel +straighter than if she hadn't. Deep, always, was +his sense of life with her—deep as it had been from +the moment of those signs of life that in the dusky +London of two winters ago they had originally exchanged. +He had never taken her for unguarded, +ignorant, weak; and if he put to her a claim for some +intenser faith between them this was because he believed +it could reach her and she could meet it. "I +can go on perhaps," he said, "with help. But I can't +go on without." +</p><p> +She looked away from him now, and it showed +him how she understood. "We ought to be there—I +mean when they come out." +</p><p> +"They <i>won't</i> come out—not yet. And I don't +care if they do." To which he straightway added, as +if to deal with the charge of selfishness that his +words, sounding for himself, struck him as enabling +her to make: "Why not have done with it all +and face the music as we are?" It broke from him +in perfect sincerity. "Good God, if you'd only <i>take</i> +me!" +</p><p> +It brought her eyes round to him again, and he +could see how, after all, somewhere deep within, she +felt his rebellion more sweet than bitter. Its effect +on her spirit and her sense was visibly to hold her an +instant. "We've gone too far," she none the less +pulled herself together to reply. "Do you want to +kill her?" +</p><p> +He had an hesitation that wasn't all candid. "Kill, +you mean, Aunt Maud?" +</p><p> +"You know whom I mean. We've told too many +lies." +</p><p> +Oh at this his head went up. "I, my dear, have +told none!" +</p><p> +He had brought it out with a sharpness that did +him good, but he had naturally, none the less, to take +the look it made her give him. "Thank you very +much." +</p><p> +Her expression, however, failed to check the words +that had already risen to his lips. "Rather than lay +myself open to the least appearance of it I'll go this +very night." +</p><p> +"Then go," said Kate Croy. +</p><p> +He knew after a little, while they walked on again +together, that what was in the air for him, and disconcertingly, +was not the violence, but much rather +the cold quietness, of the way this had come from +her. They walked on together, and it was for a minute +as if their difference had become of a sudden, in +all truth, a split—as if the basis of his departure had +been settled. Then, incoherently and still more suddenly, +recklessly moreover, since they now might +easily, from under the arcades, be observed, he passed +his hand into her arm with a force that produced for +them another pause. "I'll tell any lie you want, any +your idea requires, if you'll only come to me." +</p><p> +"Come to you?" +</p><p> +"Come to me." +</p><p> +"How? Where?" +</p><p> +She spoke low, but there was somehow, for his +uncertainty, a wonder in her being so equal to him. +"To my rooms, which are perfectly possible, and in +taking which, the other day, I had you, as you must +have felt, in view. We can arrange it—with two +grains of courage. People in our case always arrange +it." She listened as for the good information, and +there was support for him—since it was a question +of his going step by step—in the way she took no +refuge in showing herself shocked. He had in truth +not expected of her that particular vulgarity, but the +absence of it only added the thrill of a deeper reason +to his sense of possibilities. For the knowledge of +what she was he had absolutely to <i>see</i> her now, incapable +of refuge, stand there for him in all the light of +the day and of his admirable merciless meaning. Her +mere listening in fact made him even understand +himself as he hadn't yet done. Idea for idea, his +own was thus already, and in the germ, beautiful. +"There's nothing for me possible but to feel that I'm +not a fool. It's all I have to say, but you must know +what it means. <i>With</i> you I can do it—I'll go as far +as you demand or as you will yourself. Without you—I'll +be hanged! And I must be sure." +</p><p> +She listened so well that she was really listening +after he had ceased to speak. He had kept his grasp +of her, drawing her close, and though they had again, +for the time, stopped walking, his talk—for others +at a distance—might have been, in the matchless +place, that of any impressed tourist to any slightly +more detached companion. On possessing himself +of her arm he had made her turn, so that they faced +afresh to Saint Mark's, over the great presence of +which his eyes moved while she twiddled her parasol. +She now, however, made a motion that confronted them +finally with the opposite end. Then only she spoke—"Please +take your hand out of my arm." He understood +at once: she had made out in the shade of +the gallery the issue of the others from their place of +purchase. So they went to them side by side, and it +was all right. The others had seen them as well and +waited for them, complacent enough, under one +of the arches. They themselves too—he argued +that Kate would argue—looked perfectly ready, +decently patient, properly accommodating. They +themselves suggested nothing worse—always by +Kate's system—than a pair of the children of a supercivilised +age making the best of an awkwardness. +They didn't nevertheless hurry—that would overdo +it; so he had time to feel, as it were, what he felt. He +felt, ever so distinctly—it was with this he faced +Mrs. Lowder—that he was already in a sense possessed +of what he wanted. There was more to come—everything; +he had by no means, with his companion, +had it all out. Yet what he was possessed of +was real—the fact that she hadn't thrown over his +lucidity the horrid shadow of cheap reprobation. Of +this he had had so sore a fear that its being dispelled +was in itself of the nature of bliss. The danger +had dropped—it was behind him there in the great +sunny space. So far she was good for what he +wanted. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">III</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +She was good enough, as it proved, for him to put +to her that evening, and with further ground for it, +the next sharpest question that had been on his lips +in the morning—which his other preoccupation had +then, to his consciousness, crowded out. His opportunity +was again made, as befell, by his learning from +Mrs. Stringham, on arriving, as usual, with the close +of day, at the palace, that Milly must fail them again +at dinner, but would to all appearance be able to come +down later. He had found Susan Shepherd alone in +the great saloon, where even more candles than their +friend's large common allowance—she grew daily +more splendid; they were all struck with it and chaffed +her about it—lighted up the pervasive mystery of +Style. He had thus five minutes with the good lady +before Mrs. Lowder and Kate appeared—minutes +illumined indeed to a longer reach than by the number +of Milly's candles. +</p><p> +"<i>May</i> she come down—ought she if she isn't +really up to it?" +</p><p> +He had asked that in the wonderment always +stirred in him by glimpses—rare as were these—of +the inner truth about the girl. There was of course +a question of health—it was in the air, it was in the +ground he trod, in the food he tasted, in the sounds +he heard, it was everywhere. But it was everywhere +with the effect of a request to him—to his very delicacy, +to the common discretion of others as well as +his own—that no allusion to it should be made. +There had practically been none, that morning, +on her explained non-appearance—the absence of +it, as we know, quite monstrous and awkward; and +this passage with Mrs. Stringham offered him his first +licence to open his eyes. He had gladly enough held +them closed; all the more that his doing so performed +for his own spirit a useful function. If he positively +wanted not to be brought up with his nose against +Milly's facts, what better proof could he have that his +conduct was marked by straightness? It was perhaps +pathetic for her, and for himself was perhaps +even ridiculous; but he hadn't even the amount of +curiosity that he would have had about an ordinary +friend. He might have shaken himself at moments +to try, for a sort of dry decency, to have it; but that +too, it appeared, wouldn't come. In what therefore +was the duplicity? He was at least sure about his +feelings—it being so established that he had none +at all. They were all for Kate, without a feather's +weight to spare. He was acting for Kate—not, by +the deviation of an inch, for her friend. He was accordingly +not interested, for had he been interested +he would have cared, and had he cared he would have +wanted to know. Had he wanted to know he wouldn't +have been purely passive, and it was his pure passivity +that had to represent his dignity and his honour. +His dignity and his honour, at the same time, let us +add, fortunately fell short to-night of spoiling his little +talk with Susan Shepherd. One glimpse—it was as +if she had wished to give him that; and it was as if, +for himself, on current terms, he could oblige her by +accepting it. She not only permitted, she fairly invited +him to open his eyes. "I'm so glad you're +here." It was no answer to his question, but it had +for the moment to serve. And the rest was fully to +come. +</p><p> +He smiled at her and presently found himself, as +a kind of consequence of communion with her, talking +her own language. "It's a very wonderful experience." +</p><p> +"Well"—and her raised face shone up at him—"that's +all I want you to feel about it. If I weren't +afraid," she added, "there are things I should like +to say to you." +</p><p> +"And what are you afraid of, please?" he encouragingly +asked. +</p><p> +"Of other things that I may possibly spoil. Besides, +I don't, you know, seem to have the chance. +You're always, you know, <i>with</i> her." +</p><p> +He was strangely supported, it struck him, in his +fixed smile; which was the more fixed as he felt in +these last words an exact description of his course. +It was an odd thing to have come to, but he was always +with her. "Ah," he none the less smiled, "I'm +not with her now." +</p><p> +"No—and I'm so glad, since I get this from it. +She's ever so much better." +</p><p> +"Better? Then she <i>has</i> been worse?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham waited. "She has been marvellous—that's +what she has been. She <i>is</i> marvellous. +But she's really better." +</p><p> +"Oh then if she's really better—!" But he +checked himself, wanting only to be easy about it +and above all not to appear engaged to the point of +mystification. "We shall miss her the more at dinner." +</p><p> +Susan Shepherd, however, was all there for him. +"She's keeping herself. You'll see. You'll not +really need to miss anything. There's to be a little +party." +</p><p> +"Ah I do see—by this aggravated grandeur." +</p><p> +"Well, it <i>is</i> lovely, isn't it? I want the whole thing. +She's lodged for the first time as she ought, from her +type, to be; and doing it—I mean bringing out all +the glory of the place—makes her really happy. +It's a Veronese picture, as near as can be—with me +as the inevitable dwarf, the small blackamoor, put +into a corner of the foreground for effect. If I only +had a hawk or a hound or something of that sort I +should do the scene more honour. The old housekeeper, +the woman in charge here, has a big red +cockatoo that I might borrow and perch on my thumb +for the evening." These explanations and sundry +others Mrs. Stringham gave, though not all with the +result of making him feel that the picture closed him +in. What part was there for <i>him</i>, with his attitude +that lacked the highest style, in a composition in +which everything else would have it? "They won't, +however, be at dinner, the few people she expects—they +come round afterwards from their respective +hotels; and Sir Luke Strett and his niece, the principal +ones, will have arrived from London but an hour or +two ago. It's for <i>him</i> she has wanted to do something—to +let it begin at once. We shall see more +of him, because she likes him; and I'm so glad—she'll +be glad too—that <i>you're</i> to see him." The +good lady, in connexion with it, was urgent, was +almost unnaturally bright. "So I greatly hope—!" +But her hope fairly lost itself in the wide light of her +cheer. +</p><p> +He considered a little this appearance, while she +let him, he thought, into still more knowledge than +she uttered. "What is it you hope?" +</p><p> +"Well, that you'll stay on." +</p><p> +"Do you mean after dinner?" She meant, he +seemed to feel, so much that he could scarce tell where +it ended or began. +</p><p> +"Oh that, of course. Why we're to have music—beautiful +instruments and songs; and not Tasso +declaimed as in the guide-books either. She has arranged +it—or at least I have. That is Eugenio has. +Besides, you're in the picture." +</p><p> +"Oh—I!" said Densher almost with the gravity +of a real protest. +</p><p> +"You'll be the grand young man who surpasses +the others and holds up his head and the wine-cup. +What we hope," Mrs. Stringham pursued, "is that +you'll be faithful to us—that you've not come for +a mere foolish few days." +</p><p> +Densher's more private and particular shabby +realities turned, without comfort, he was conscious, +at this touch, in the artificial repose he had in his +anxiety about them but half-managed to induce. The +way smooth ladies, travelling for their pleasure and +housed in Veronese pictures, talked to plain embarrassed +working-men, engaged in an unprecedented +sacrifice of time and of the opportunity for modest +acquisition! The things they took for granted and the +general misery of explaining! He couldn't tell them +how he had tried to work, how it was partly what he +had moved into rooms for, only to find himself, almost +for the first time in his life, stricken and sterile; because +that would give them a false view of the source +of his restlessness, if not of the degree of it. It would +operate, indirectly perhaps, but infallibly, to add to +that weight as of expected performance which these +very moments with Mrs. Stringham caused more and +more to settle on his heart. He had incurred it, the +expectation of performance; the thing was done, and +there was no use talking; again, again the cold breath +of it was in the air. So there he was. And at best he +floundered. "I'm afraid you won't understand when +I say I've very tiresome things to consider. Botherations, +necessities at home. The pinch, the pressure in +London." +</p><p> +But she understood in perfection; she rose to the +pinch and the pressure and showed how they had been +her own very element. "Oh the daily task and the +daily wage, the golden guerdon or reward? No one +knows better than I how they haunt one in the flight +of the precious deceiving days. Aren't they just what +I myself have given up? I've given up all to follow +<i>her</i>. I wish you could feel as I do. And can't you," +she asked, "write about Venice?" +</p><p> +He very nearly wished, for the minute, that he could +feel as she did; and he smiled for her kindly. "Do <i>you</i> +write about Venice?" +</p><p> +"No; but I would—oh wouldn't I?—if I hadn't +so completely given up. She's, you know, my princess, +and to one's princess—" +</p><p> +"One makes the whole sacrifice?" +</p><p> +"Precisely. There you are!" +</p><p> +It pressed on him with this that never had a man +been in so many places at once. "I quite understand +that she's yours. Only you see she's not mine." He +felt he could somehow, for honesty, risk that, as he +had the moral certainty she wouldn't repeat it and +least of all to Mrs. Lowder, who would find in it a disturbing +implication. This was part of what he liked +in the good lady, that she didn't repeat, and also that +she gave him a delicate sense of her shyly wishing him +to know it. That was in itself a hint of possibilities +between them, of a relation, beneficent and elastic for +him, which wouldn't engage him further than he +could see. Yet even as he afresh made this out he felt +how strange it all was. She wanted, Susan Shepherd +then, as appeared, the same thing Kate wanted, only +wanted it, as still further appeared, in so different a +way and from a motive so different, even though +scarce less deep. Then Mrs. Lowder wanted, by so +odd an evolution of her exuberance, exactly what +each of the others did; and he was between them all, +he was in the midst. Such perceptions made occasions—well, +occasions for fairly wondering if it +mightn't be best just to consent, luxuriously, to <i>be</i> +the ass the whole thing involved. Trying not to be and +yet keeping in it was of the two things the more asinine. +He was glad there was no male witness; it was a +circle of petticoats; he shouldn't have liked a man to +see him. He only had for a moment a sharp thought +of Sir Luke Strett, the great master of the knife whom +Kate in London had spoken of Milly as in commerce +with, and whose renewed intervention at such a distance, +just announced to him, required some accounting +for. He had a vision of great London surgeons—if +this one was a surgeon—as incisive all round; so +that he should perhaps after all not wholly escape the +ironic attention of his own sex. The most he might be +able to do was not to care; while he was trying not to +he could take that in. It was a train, however, that +brought up the vision of Lord Mark as well. Lord +Mark had caught him twice in the fact—the fact of +his absurd posture; and that made a second male. +But it was comparatively easy not to mind Lord Mark. +</p><p> +His companion had before this taken him up, and +in a tone to confirm her discretion, on the matter of +Milly's not being his princess. "Of course she's not. +You must do something first." +</p><p> +Densher gave it his thought. "Wouldn't it be +rather <i>she</i> who must?" +</p><p> +It had more than he intended the effect of bringing +her to a stand. "I see. No doubt, if one takes it so." +Her cheer was for the time in eclipse, and she looked +over the place, avoiding his eyes, as in the wonder of +what Milly could do. "And yet she has wanted to be +kind." +</p><p> +It made him on the spot feel a brute. "Of course +she has. No one could be more charming. She has +treated me as if <i>I</i> were somebody. Call her my hostess +as I've never had nor imagined a hostess, and I'm +with you altogether. Of course," he added in the right +spirit for her, "I do see that it's quite court life." +</p><p> +She promptly showed how this was almost all she +wanted of him. "That's all I mean, if you understand +it of such a court as never was: one of the courts +of heaven, the court of a reigning seraph, a sort of a +vice-queen of an angel. That will do perfectly." +</p><p> +"Oh well then I grant it. Only court life as a +general thing, you know," he observed, "isn't supposed +to pay." +</p><p> +"Yes, one has read; but this is beyond any book. +That's just the beauty here; it's why she's the great +and only princess. With her, at her court," said Mrs. +Stringham, "it does pay." Then as if she had quite +settled it for him: "You'll see for yourself." +</p><p> +He waited a moment, but said nothing to discourage +her. "I think you were right just now. One must +do something first." +</p><p> +"Well, you've done something." +</p><p> +"No—I don't see that. I can do more." +</p><p> +Oh well, she seemed to say, if he would have it so! +"You can do everything, you know." +</p><p> +"Everything" was rather too much for him to +take up gravely, and he modestly let it alone, speaking +the next moment, to avert fatuity, of a different +but a related matter. "Why has she sent for Sir +Luke Strett if, as you tell me, she's so much better?" +</p><p> +"She hasn't sent. He has come of himself," Mrs. +Stringham explained. "He has wanted to come." +</p><p> +"Isn't that rather worse then—if it means he +mayn't be easy?" +</p><p> +"He was coming, from the first, for his holiday. +She has known that these several weeks." After +which Mrs. Stringham added: "You can <i>make</i> him +easy." +</p><p> +"<i>I</i> can?" he candidly wondered. It was truly the +circle of petticoats. "What have I to do with it for a +man like that?" +</p><p> +"How do you know," said his friend, "what he's +like? He's not like any one you've ever seen. He's a +great beneficent being." +</p><p> +"Ah then he can do without me. I've no call, as an +outsider, to meddle." +</p><p> +"Tell him, all the same," Mrs. Stringham urged, +"what you think." +</p><p> +"What I think of Miss Theale?" Densher stared. +It was, as they said, a large order. But he found the +right note. "It's none of his business." +</p><p> +It did seem a moment for Mrs. Stringham too the +right note. She fixed him at least with an expression +still bright, but searching, that showed almost to excess +what she saw in it; though what this might be he +was not to make out till afterwards. "Say <i>that</i> to him +then. Anything will do for him as a means of getting +at you." +</p><p> +"And why should he get at me?" +</p><p> +"Give him a chance to. Let him talk to you. Then +you'll see." +</p><p> +All of which, on Mrs. Stringham's part, sharpened +his sense of immersion in an element rather more +strangely than agreeably warm—a sense that was +moreover, during the next two or three hours, to be +fed to satiety by several other impressions. Milly +came down after dinner, half a dozen friends—objects +of interest mainly, it appeared, to the ladies of +Lancaster Gate—having by that time arrived; and +with this call on her attention, the further call of her +musicians ushered by Eugenio, but personally and +separately welcomed, and the supreme opportunity +offered in the arrival of the great doctor, who came +last of all, he felt her diffuse in wide warm waves the +spell of a general, a beatific mildness. There was a +deeper depth of it, doubtless, for some than for others; +what he in particular knew of it was that he seemed +to stand in it up to his neck. He moved about in it +and it made no plash; he floated, he noiselessly swam +in it, and they were all together, for that matter, like +fishes in a crystal pool. The effect of the place, the +beauty of the scene, had probably much to do with it; +the golden grace of the high rooms, chambers of art in +themselves, took care, as an influence, of the general +manner, and made people bland without making +them solemn. They were only people, as Mrs. Stringham +had said, staying for the week or two at the inns, +people who during the day had fingered their Baedekers, +gaped at their frescoes and differed, over fractions +of francs, with their gondoliers. But Milly, let +loose among them in a wonderful white dress, brought +them somehow into relation with something that made +them more finely genial; so that if the Veronese picture +of which he had talked with Mrs. Stringham was +not quite constituted, the comparative prose of the +previous hours, the traces of insensibility qualified by +"beating down," were at last almost nobly disowned. +There was perhaps something for him in the accident +of his seeing her for the first time in white, but she +hadn't yet had occasion—circulating with a clearness +intensified—to strike him as so happily pervasive. +She was different, younger, fairer, with the +colour of her braided hair more than ever a not altogether +lucky challenge to attention; yet he was loth +wholly to explain it by her having quitted this once, +for some obscure yet doubtless charming reason, her +almost monastic, her hitherto inveterate black. Much +as the change did for the value of her presence, she +had never yet, when all was said, made it for <i>him</i>; +and he was not to fail of the further amusement of +judging her determined in the matter by Sir Luke +Strett's visit. If he could in this connexion have felt +jealous of Sir Luke Strett, whose strong face and type, +less assimilated by the scene perhaps than any others, +he was anon to study from the other side of the saloon, +that would doubtless have been most amusing +of all. But he couldn't be invidious, even to profit by +so high a tide; he felt himself too much "in" it, as he +might have said: a moment's reflexion put him more +in than any one. The way Milly neglected him for +other cares while Kate and Mrs. Lowder, without so +much as the attenuation of a joke, introduced him to +English ladies—that was itself a proof; for nothing +really of so close a communion had up to this time +passed between them as the single bright look and the +three gay words (all ostensibly of the last lightness) +with which her confessed consciousness brushed by +him. +</p><p> +She was acquitting herself to-night as hostess, he +could see, under some supreme idea, an inspiration +which was half her nerves and half an inevitable harmony; +but what he especially recognised was the +character that had already several times broken out +in her and that she so oddly appeared able, by choice +or by instinctive affinity, to keep down or to display. +She was the American girl as he had originally found +her—found her at certain moments, it was true, in +New York, more than at certain others; she was the +American girl as, still more than then, he had seen +her on the day of her meeting him in London and in +Kate's company. It affected him as a large though +queer social resource in her—such as a man, for instance, +to his diminution, would never in the world +be able to command; and he wouldn't have known +whether to see it in an extension or a contraction of +"personality," taking it as he did most directly for a +confounding extension of surface. Clearly too it was +the right thing this evening all round: that came out +for him in a word from Kate as she approached him to +wreak on him a second introduction. He had under +cover of the music melted away from the lady toward +whom she had first pushed him; and there was something +in her to affect him as telling evasively a tale of +their talk in the Piazza. To what did she want to +coerce him as a form of penalty for what he had done +to her there? It was thus in contact uppermost for +him that he had done something; not only caused her +perfect intelligence to act in his interest, but left her +unable to get away, by any mere private effort, from +his inattackable logic. With him thus in presence, +and near him—and it had been as unmistakeable +through dinner—there was no getting away for her +at all, there was less of it than ever: so she could only +either deal with the question straight, either frankly +yield or ineffectually struggle or insincerely argue, or +else merely express herself by following up the advantage +she did possess. It was part of that advantage +for the hour—a brief fallacious makeweight to his +pressure—that there were plenty of things left in +which he must feel her will. They only told him, +these indications, how much she was, in such close +quarters, feeling his; and it was enough for him again +that her very aspect, as great a variation in its way as +Milly's own, gave him back the sense of his action. +It had never yet in life been granted him to know, +almost materially to taste, as he could do in these +minutes, the state of what was vulgarly called conquest. +He had lived long enough to have been on occasion +"liked," but it had never begun to be allowed +him to be liked to any such tune in any such quarter. +It was a liking greater than Milly's—or it would be: +he felt it in him to answer for that. So at all events he +read the case while he noted that Kate was somehow—for +Kate—wanting in lustre. As a striking young +presence she was practically superseded; of the mildness +that Milly diffused she had assimilated all her +share; she might fairly have been dressed to-night in +the little black frock, superficially indistinguishable, +that Milly had laid aside. This represented, he perceived, +the opposite pole from such an effect as that of +her wonderful entrance, under her aunt's eyes—he +had never forgotten it—the day of their younger +friend's failure at Lancaster Gate. She was, in her +accepted effacement—it was actually her acceptance +that made the beauty and repaired the damage—under +her aunt's eyes now; but whose eyes were not +effectually preoccupied? It struck him none the less +certainly that almost the first thing she said to him +showed an exquisite attempt to appear if not unconvinced +at least self-possessed. +</p><p> +"Don't you think her good enough <i>now?</i>" +Almost heedless of the danger of overt freedoms, +she eyed Milly from where they stood, noted her in +renewed talk, over her further wishes, with the members +of her little orchestra, who had approached her +with demonstrations of deference enlivened by native +humours—things quite in the line of old Venetian +comedy. The girl's idea of music had been +happy—a real solvent of shyness, yet not drastic; +thanks to the intermissions, discretions, a general +habit of mercy to gathered barbarians, that reflected +the good manners of its interpreters, representatives +though these might be but of the order in which taste +was natural and melody rank. It was easy at all events +to answer Kate. "Ah my dear, you know how good +I think her!" +</p><p> +"But she's <i>too</i> nice," Kate returned with appreciation. +"Everything suits her so—especially her +pearls. They go so with her old lace. I'll trouble +you really to look at them." Densher, though aware +he had seen them before, had perhaps not "really" +looked at them, and had thus not done justice to the +embodied poetry—his mind, for Milly's aspects, +kept coming back to that—which owed them part +of its style. Kate's face, as she considered them, +struck him: the long, priceless chain, wound twice +round the neck, hung, heavy and pure, down the front +of the wearer's breast—so far down that Milly's +trick, evidently unconscious, of holding and vaguely +fingering and entwining a part of it, conduced presumably +to convenience. "She's a dove," Kate went +on, "and one somehow doesn't think of doves as bejewelled. +Yet they suit her down to the ground." +</p><p> +"Yes—down to the ground is the word." Densher +saw now how they suited her, but was perhaps +still more aware of something intense in his companion's +feeling about them. Milly was indeed a dove; +this was the figure, though it most applied to her +spirit. Yet he knew in a moment that Kate was just +now, for reasons hidden from him, exceptionally +under the impression of that element of wealth in her +which was a power, which was a great power, and +which was dove-like only so far as one remembered +that doves have wings and wondrous flights, have +them as well as tender tints and soft sounds. It even +came to him dimly that such wings could in a given +case—<i>had</i>, truly, in the case with which he was concerned—spread +themselves for protection. Hadn't +they, for that matter, lately taken an inordinate reach, +and weren't Kate and Mrs. Lowder, weren't Susan +Shepherd and he, wasn't he in particular, nestling +under them to a great increase of immediate ease? +All this was a brighter blur in the general light, out of +which he heard Kate presently going on. +</p><p> +"Pearls have such a magic that they suit every +one." +</p><p> +"They would uncommonly suit you," he frankly +returned. +</p><p> +"Oh yes, I see myself!" +</p><p> +As she saw herself, suddenly, he saw her—she +would have been splendid; and with it he felt more +what she was thinking of. Milly's royal ornament +had—under pressure now not wholly occult—taken +on the character of a symbol of differences, differences +of which the vision was actually in Kate's face. +It might have been in her face too that, well as she +certainly would look in pearls, pearls were exactly +what Merton Densher would never be able to give +her. Wasn't <i>that</i> the great difference that Milly to-night +symbolised? She unconsciously represented to +Kate, and Kate took it in at every pore, that there +was nobody with whom she had less in common than +a remarkably handsome girl married to a man unable +to make her on any such lines as that the least little +present. Of these absurdities, however, it was not +till afterwards that Densher thought. He could think +now, to any purpose, only of what Mrs. Stringham +had said to him before dinner. He could but come +back to his friend's question of a minute ago. "She's +certainly good enough, as you call it, in the sense that +I'm assured she's better. Mrs. Stringham, an hour +or two since, was in great feather to me about it. She +evidently believes her better." +</p><p> +"Well, if they choose to call it so—!" +</p><p> +"And what do <i>you</i> call it—as against them?" +</p><p> +"I don't call it anything to any one but you. I'm +not 'against' them!" Kate added as with just a fresh +breath of impatience for all he had to be taught. +</p><p> +"That's what I'm talking about," he said. "What +do you call it to me?" +</p><p> +It made her wait a little. "She isn't better. She's +worse. But that has nothing to do with it." +</p><p> +"Nothing to do?" He wondered. +</p><p> +But she was clear. "Nothing to do with us. Except +of course that we're doing our best for her. We're +making her want to live." And Kate again watched +her. "To-night she does want to live." She spoke +with a kindness that had the strange property of +striking him as inconsequent—so much, and doubtless +so unjustly, had all her clearness been an implication +of the hard. "It's wonderful. It's beautiful." +</p><p> +"It's beautiful indeed." +</p><p> +He hated somehow the helplessness of his own +note; but she had given it no heed. "She's doing +it for <i>him</i>"—and she nodded in the direction of +Milly's medical visitor. "She wants to be for him at +her best. But she can't deceive him." +</p><p> +Densher had been looking too; which made him +say in a moment: "And do you think <i>you</i> can? I +mean, if he's to be with us here, about your sentiments. +If Aunt Maud's so thick with him—!" +</p><p> +Aunt Maud now occupied in fact a place at his +side and was visibly doing her best to entertain him, +though this failed to prevent such a direction of his +own eyes—determined, in the way such things happen, +precisely by the attention of the others—as +Densher became aware of and as Kate promptly +marked. "He's looking at <i>you</i>. He wants to speak +to you." +</p><p> +"So Mrs. Stringham," the young man laughed, +"advised me he would." +</p><p> +"Then let him. Be right with him. I don't need," +Kate went on in answer to the previous question, +"to deceive him. Aunt Maud, if it's necessary, will +do that. I mean that, knowing nothing about me, he +can see me only as she sees me. She sees me now so +well. He has nothing to do with me." +</p><p> +"Except to reprobate you," Densher suggested. +</p><p> +"For not caring for <i>you?</i> Perfectly. As a brilliant +young man driven by it into your relation with +Milly—as all <i>that</i> I leave you to him." +</p><p> +"Well," said Densher sincerely enough, "I think +I can thank you for leaving me to some one easier +perhaps with me than yourself." +</p><p> +She had been looking about again meanwhile, the +lady having changed her place, for the friend of Mrs. +Lowder's to whom she had spoken of introducing +him. "All the more reason why I should commit you +then to Lady Wells." +</p><p> +"Oh but wait." It was not only that he distinguished +Lady Wells from afar, that she inspired him +with no eagerness, and that, somewhere at the back +of his head, he was fairly aware of the question, in +germ, of whether this was the kind of person he should +be involved with when they were married. It was +furthermore that the consciousness of something he +had not got from Kate in the morning, and that +logically much concerned him, had been made more +keen by these very moments—to say nothing of +the consciousness that, with their general smallness +of opportunity, he must squeeze each stray instant +hard. If Aunt Maud, over there with Sir Luke, +noted him as a little "attentive," that might pass for +a futile demonstration on the part of a gentleman who +had to confess to having, not very gracefully, changed +his mind. Besides, just now, he didn't care for Aunt +Maud except in so far as he was immediately to +show. "How can Mrs. Lowder think me disposed of +with any finality, if I'm disposed of only to a girl +who's dying? If you're right about that, about the +state of the case, you're wrong about Mrs. Lowder's +being squared. If Milly, as you say," he lucidly +pursued, "can't deceive a great surgeon, or whatever, +the great surgeon won't deceive other people—not +those, that is, who are closely concerned. He won't +at any rate deceive Mrs. Stringham, who's Milly's +greatest friend; and it will be very odd if Mrs. Stringham +deceives Aunt Maud, who's her own." +</p><p> +Kate showed him at this the cold glow of an idea +that really was worth his having kept her for. "Why +will it be odd? I marvel at your seeing your way so +little." +</p><p> +Mere curiosity even, about his companion, had +now for him its quick, its slightly quaking intensities. +He had compared her once, we know, to a "new +book," an uncut volume of the highest, the rarest +quality; and his emotion (to justify that) was again +and again like the thrill of turning the page. "Well, +you know how deeply I marvel at the way <i>you</i> see +it!" +</p><p> +"It doesn't in the least follow," Kate went on, +"that anything in the nature of what you call deception +on Mrs. Stringham's part will be what you call +odd. Why shouldn't she hide the truth?" +</p><p> +"From Mrs. Lowder?" Densher stared. "Why +should she?" +</p><p> +"To please you." +</p><p> +"And how in the world can it please me?" +</p><p> +Kate turned her head away as if really at last almost +tired of his density. But she looked at him again +as she spoke. "Well then to please Milly." And before +he could question: "Don't you feel by this time +that there's nothing Susan Shepherd won't do for +you?" +</p><p> +He had verily after an instant to take it in, so sharply +it corresponded with the good lady's recent reception +of him. It was queerer than anything again, the way +they all came together round him. But that was an +old story, and Kate's multiplied lights led him on +and on. It was with a reserve, however, that he confessed +this. "She's ever so kind. Only her view of +the right thing may not be the same as yours." +</p><p> +"How can it be anything different if it's the view +of serving you?" +</p><p> +Densher for an instant, but only for an instant, hung +fire. "Oh the difficulty is that I don't, upon my honour, +even yet quite make out how yours does serve me." +</p><p> +"It helps you—put it then," said Kate very simply—"to +serve <i>me</i>. It gains you time." +</p><p> +"Time for what?" +</p><p> +"For everything!" She spoke at first, once more, +with impatience; then as usual she qualified. "For +anything that may happen." +</p><p> +Densher had a smile, but he felt it himself as +strained. "You're cryptic, love!" +</p><p> +It made her keep her eyes on him, and he could +thus see that, by one of those incalculable motions in +her without which she wouldn't have been a quarter +so interesting, they half-filled with tears from some +source he had too roughly touched. "I'm taking a +trouble for you I never dreamed I should take for any +human creature." +</p><p> +Oh it went home, making him flush for it; yet he +soon enough felt his reply on his lips. "Well, isn't my +whole insistence to you now that I can conjure trouble +away?" And he let it, his insistence, come out again; +it had so constantly had, all the week, but its step or +two to make. "There <i>need</i> be none whatever between +us. There need be nothing but our sense of each other." +</p><p> +It had only the effect at first that her eyes grew dry +while she took up again one of the so numerous links +in her close chain. "You can tell her anything you +like, anything whatever." +</p><p> +"Mrs. Stringham? I <i>have</i> nothing to tell her." +</p><p> +"You can tell her about <i>us</i>. I mean," she wonderfully +pursued, "that you do still like me." +</p><p> +It was indeed so wonderful that it amused him. +"Only not that you still like me." +</p><p> +She let his amusement pass. "I'm absolutely certain +she wouldn't repeat it." +</p><p> +"I see. To Aunt Maud." +</p><p> +"You don't quite see. Neither to Aunt Maud nor to +any one else." Kate then, he saw, was always seeing +Milly much more, after all, than he was; and she +showed it again as she went on. "<i>There</i>, accordingly, +is your time." +</p><p> +She did at last make him think, and it was fairly +as if light broke, though not quite all at once. "You +must let me say I <i>do</i> see. Time for something in +particular that I understand you regard as possible. +Time too that, I further understand, is time for you as +well." +</p><p> +"Time indeed for me as well." And encouraged +visibly by his glow of concentration, she looked at him +as through the air she had painfully made clear. Yet +she was still on her guard. "Don't think, however, +I'll do all the work for you. If you want things named +you must name them." +</p><p> +He had quite, within the minute, been turning +names over; and there was only one, which at last +stared at him there dreadful, that properly fitted. +"Since she's to die I'm to marry her?" +</p><p> +It struck him even at the moment as fine in her that +she met it with no wincing nor mincing. She might +for the grace of silence, for favour to their conditions, +have only answered him with her eyes. But her lips +bravely moved. "To marry her." +</p><p> +"So that when her death has taken place I shall +in the natural course have money?" +</p><p> +It was before him enough now, and he had nothing +more to ask; he had only to turn, on the spot, considerably +cold with the thought that all along—to +his stupidity, his timidity—it had been, it had +been only, what she meant. Now that he was in possession +moreover she couldn't forbear, strangely +enough, to pronounce the words she hadn't pronounced: +they broke through her controlled and colourless +voice as if she should be ashamed, to the +very end, to have flinched. "You'll in the natural +course have money. We shall in the natural course +be free." +</p><p> +"Oh, oh, oh!" Densher softly murmured. +</p><p> +"Yes, yes, yes." But she broke off. "Come to +Lady Wells." +</p><p> +He never budged—there was too much else. "I'm +to propose it then—marriage—on the spot?" +</p><p> +There was no ironic sound he needed to give it; the +more simply he spoke the more he seemed ironic. +But she remained consummately proof. "Oh I can't +go into that with you, and from the moment you don't +wash your hands of me I don't think you ought to ask +me. You must act as you like and as you can." +</p><p> +He thought again. "I'm far—as I sufficiently +showed you this morning—from washing my hands +of you." +</p><p> +"Then," said Kate, "it's all right." +</p><p> +"All right?" His eagerness flamed. "You'll +come?" +</p><p> +But he had had to see in a moment that it wasn't +what she meant. "You'll have a free hand, a clear +field, a chance—well, quite ideal." +</p><p> +"Your descriptions"—her "ideal" was such a +touch!—"are prodigious. And what I don't make +out is how, caring for me, you can like it." +</p><p> +"I don't like it, but I'm a person, thank goodness, +who can do what I don't like." +</p><p> +It wasn't till afterwards that, going back to it, he +was to read into this speech a kind of heroic ring, a +note of character that belittled his own incapacity for +action. Yet he saw indeed even at the time the greatness +of knowing so well what one wanted. At the time +too, moreover, he next reflected that he after all knew +what <i>he</i> did. But something else on his lips was uppermost. +"What I don't make out then is how you can +even bear it." +</p><p> +"Well, when you know me better you'll find out +how much I can bear." And she went on before he +could take up, as it were, her too many implications. +That it was left to him to know her, spiritually, "better" +after his long sacrifice to knowledge—this for +instance was a truth he hadn't been ready to receive +so full in the face. She had mystified him enough, +heaven knew, but that was rather by his own generosity +than by hers. And what, with it, did she seem +to suggest she might incur at his hands? In spite of +these questions she was carrying him on. "All you'll +have to do will be to stay." +</p><p> +"And proceed to my business under your eyes?" +</p><p> +"Oh dear no—we shall go." +</p><p> +"'Go?'" he wondered. "Go when, go where?" +</p><p> +"In a day or two—straight home. Aunt Maud +wishes it now." +</p><p> +It gave him all he could take in to think of. "Then +what becomes of Miss Theale?" +</p><p> +"What I tell you. She stays on, and you stay with +her." +</p><p> +He stared. "All alone?" +</p><p> +She had a smile that was apparently for his tone. +"You're old enough—with plenty of Mrs. Stringham." +</p><p> +Nothing might have been so odd for him now, +could he have measured it, as his being able to feel, +quite while he drew from her these successive cues, +that he was essentially "seeing what she would say"—an +instinct compatible for him therefore with that +absence of a need to know her better to which she had +a moment before done injustice. If it hadn't been +appearing to him in gleams that she would somewhere +break down, he probably couldn't have gone on. +Still, as she wasn't breaking down there was nothing +for him but to continue. "Is your going Mrs. Lowder's +idea?" +</p><p> +"Very much indeed. Of course again you see what +it does for us. And I don't," she added, "refer only to +our going, but to Aunt Maud's view of the general +propriety of it." +</p><p> +"I see again, as you say," Densher said after a moment. +"It makes everything fit." +</p><p> +"Everything." +</p><p> +The word, for a little, held the air, and he might +have seemed the while to be looking, by no means +dimly now, at all it stood for. But he had in fact +been looking at something else. "You leave her here +then to die?" +</p><p> +"Ah she believes she won't die. Not if you stay. +I mean," Kate explained, "Aunt Maud believes." +</p><p> +"And that's all that's necessary?" +</p><p> +Still indeed she didn't break down. "Didn't we +long ago agree that what she believes is the principal +thing for us?" +</p><p> +He recalled it, under her eyes, but it came as from +long ago. "Oh yes. I can't deny it." Then he added: +"So that if I stay—" +</p><p> +"It won't"—she was prompt—"be our fault." +</p><p> +"If Mrs. Lowder still, you mean, suspects us?" +</p><p> +"If she still suspects us. But she won't." +</p><p> +Kate gave it an emphasis that might have appeared +to leave him nothing more; and he might in fact well +have found nothing if he hadn't presently found: +"But what if she doesn't accept me?" +</p><p> +It produced in her a look of weariness that made +the patience of her tone the next moment touch him. +"You can but try." +</p><p> +"Naturally I can but try. Only, you see, one has to +try a little hard to propose to a dying girl." +</p><p> +"She isn't for you as if she's dying." It had determined +in Kate the flash of <i>justesse</i> he could perhaps +most, on consideration, have admired, since her retort +touched the truth. There before him was the fact +of how Milly to-night impressed him, and his companion, +with her eyes in his own and pursuing his impression +to the depths of them, literally now perched +on the fact in triumph. She turned her head to where +their friend was again in range, and it made him turn +his, so that they watched a minute in concert. Milly, +from the other side, happened at the moment to +notice them, and she sent across toward them in response +all the candour of her smile, the lustre of her +pearls, the value of her life, the essence of her wealth. +It brought them together again with faces made +fairly grave by the reality she put into their plan. Kate +herself grew a little pale for it, and they had for a time +only a silence. The music, however, gay and vociferous, +had broken out afresh and protected more than +interrupted them. When Densher at last spoke it was +under cover. +</p><p> +"I might stay, you know, without trying." +</p><p> +"Oh to stay <i>is</i> to try." +</p><p> +"To have for herself, you mean, the appearance of +it?" +</p><p> +"I don't see how you can have the appearance +more." +</p><p> +Densher waited. "You think it then possible she +may <i>offer</i> marriage?" +</p><p> +"I can't think—if you really want to know—what +she may <i>not</i> offer!" +</p><p> +"In the manner of princesses, who do such +things?" +</p><p> +"In any manner you like. So be prepared." +</p><p> +Well, he looked as if he almost were. "It will be +for me then to accept. But that's the way it must +come." +</p><p> +Kate's silence, so far, let it pass; but she presently +said: "You'll, on your honour, stay then?" +</p><p> +His answer made her wait, but when it came it was +distinct. "Without you, you mean?" +</p><p> +"Without us." +</p><p> +"And you yourselves go at latest—?" +</p><p> +"Not later than Thursday." +</p><p> +It made three days. "Well," he said, "I'll stay, +on my honour, if you'll come to me. On your honour." +</p><p> +Again, as before, this made her momentarily rigid, +with a rigour out of which, at a loss, she vaguely cast +about her. Her rigour was more to him, nevertheless, +than all her readiness; for her readiness was the woman +herself, and this other thing a mask, a stop-gap +and a "dodge." She cast about, however, as happened, +and not for the instant in vain. Her eyes, +turned over the room, caught at a pretext. "Lady +Wells is tired of waiting: she's coming—see—to +<i>us</i>." +</p><p> +Densher saw in fact, but there was a distance for +their visitor to cross, and he still had time. "If you +decline to understand me I wholly decline to understand +you. I'll do nothing." +</p><p> +"Nothing?" It was as if she tried for the minute +to plead. +</p><p> +"I'll do nothing. I'll go off before you. I'll go to-morrow." +</p><p> +He was to have afterwards the sense of her having +then, as the phrase was—and for vulgar triumphs +too—seen he meant it. She looked again at Lady +Wells, who was nearer, but she quickly came back. +"And if I do understand?" +</p><p> +"I'll do everything." +</p><p> +She found anew a pretext in her approaching +friend: he was fairly playing with her pride. He had +never, he then knew, tasted, in all his relation with +her, of anything so sharp—too sharp for mere sweetness—as +the vividness with which he saw himself +master in the conflict. "Well, I understand." +</p><p> +"On your honour?" +</p><p> +"On my honour." +</p><p> +"You'll come?" +</p><p> +"I'll come." +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">BOOK NINTH</h2> +<br> +<h2 align="center">I</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +It was after they had gone that he truly felt the difference, +which was most to be felt moreover in his faded +old rooms. He had recovered from the first a part of +his attachment to this scene of contemplation, within +sight, as it was, of the Rialto bridge, on the hither +side of that arch of associations and the left going up +the Canal; he had seen it in a particular light, to +which, more and more, his mind and his hands adjusted +it; but the interest the place now wore for him +had risen at a bound, becoming a force that, on the +spot, completely engaged and absorbed him, and relief +from which—if relief was the name—he could +find only by getting away and out of reach. What +had come to pass within his walls lingered there as an +obsession importunate to all his senses; it lived again, +as a cluster of pleasant memories, at every hour and +in every object; it made everything but itself irrelevant +and tasteless. It remained, in a word, a conscious +watchful presence, active on its own side, for ever to +be reckoned with, in face of which the effort at detachment +was scarcely less futile than frivolous. Kate +had come to him; it was only once—and this not +from any failure of their need, but from such impossibilities, +for bravery alike and for subtlety, as there was +at the last no blinking; yet she had come, that once, +to stay, as people called it; and what survived of +her, what reminded and insisted, was something he +couldn't have banished if he had wished. Luckily he +didn't wish, even though there might be for a man +almost a shade of the awful in so unqualified a consequence +of his act. It had simply <i>worked</i>, his idea, the +idea he had made her accept; and all erect before him, +really covering the ground as far as he could see, was +the fact of the gained success that this represented. +It was, otherwise, but the fact of the idea as directly +applied, as converted from a luminous conception +into an historic truth. He had known it before but as +desired and urged, as convincingly insisted on for the +help it would render; so that at present, <i>with</i> the help +rendered, it seemed to acknowledge its office and to +set up, for memory and faith, an insistence of its own. +He had in fine judged his friend's pledge in advance +as an inestimable value, and what he must now know +his case for was that of a possession of the value to the +full. Wasn't it perhaps even rather the value that +possessed <i>him</i>, kept him thinking of it and waiting on +it, turning round and round it and making sure of it +again from this side and that? +</p><p> +It played for him—certainly in this prime afterglow—the +part of a treasure kept at home in safety +and sanctity, something he was sure of finding in its +place when, with each return, he worked his heavy +old key in the lock. The door had but to open for +him to be with it again and for it to be all there; so +intensely there that, as we say, no other act was possible +to him than the renewed act, almost the hallucination, +of intimacy. Wherever he looked or sat or +stood, to whatever aspect he gave for the instant the +advantage, it was in view as nothing of the moment, +nothing begotten of time or of chance could be, or +ever would; it was in view as, when the curtain has +risen, the play on the stage is in view, night after night, +for the fiddlers. He remained thus, in his own theatre, +in his single person, perpetual orchestra to the +ordered drama, the confirmed "run"; playing low +and slow, moreover, in the regular way, for the situations +of most importance. No other visitor was to +come to him; he met, he bumped occasionally, in the +Piazza or in his walks, against claimants to acquaintance, +remembered or forgotten, at present mostly +effusive, sometimes even inquisitive; but he gave no +address and encouraged no approach; he couldn't +for his life, he felt, have opened his door to a third +person. Such a person would have interrupted him, +would have profaned his secret or perhaps have +guessed it; would at any rate have broken the spell +of what he conceived himself—in the absence of +anything "to show"—to be inwardly doing. He was +giving himself up—that was quite enough—to the +general feeling of his renewed engagement to fidelity. +The force of the engagement, the quantity of the article +to be supplied, the special solidity of the contract, +the way, above all, as a service for which the price +named by him had been magnificently paid, his equivalent +office was to take effect—such items might well +fill his consciousness when there was nothing from +outside to interfere. Never was a consciousness more +rounded and fastened down over what filled it; which +is precisely what we have spoken of as, in its degree, +the oppression of success, the somewhat chilled state—tending +to the solitary—of supreme recognition. +If it was slightly awful to feel so justified, this was by +the loss of the warmth of the element of mystery. +The lucid reigned instead of it, and it was into the +lucid that he sat and stared. He shook himself out of +it a dozen times a day, tried to break by his own act +his constant still communion. It wasn't still communion +she had meant to bequeath him; it was the +very different business of that kind of fidelity of which +the other name was careful action. +</p><p> +Nothing, he perfectly knew, was less like careful +action than the immersion he enjoyed at home. The +actual grand queerness was that to be faithful to Kate +he had positively to take his eyes, his arms, his lips +straight off her—he had to let her alone. He had +to remember it was time to go to the palace—which +in truth was a mercy, since the check was not less +effectual than imperative. What it came to, fortunately, +as yet, was that when he closed the door behind +him for an absence he always shut her in. Shut +her out—it came to that rather, when once he had +got a little away; and before he reached the palace, +much more after hearing at his heels the bang of the +greater <i>portone</i>, he felt free enough not to know his +position as oppressively false. As Kate was <i>all</i> in his +poor rooms, and not a ghost of her left for the grander, +it was only on reflexion that the falseness came out; +so long as he left it to the mercy of beneficent chance +it offered him no face and made of him no claim that +he couldn't meet without aggravation of his inward +sense. This aggravation had been his original horror; +yet what—in Milly's presence, each day—was +horror doing with him but virtually letting him off? +He shouldn't perhaps get off to the end; there was +time enough still for the possibility of shame to pounce. +Still, however, he did constantly a little more what he +liked best, and that kept him for the time more safe. +What he liked best was, in any case, to know why +things were as he felt them; and he knew it pretty +well, in this case, ten days after the retreat of his other +friends. He then fairly perceived that—even putting +their purity of motive at its highest—it was neither +Kate nor he who made his strange relation to Milly, +who made her own, so far as it might be, innocent; +it was neither of them who practically purged it—if +practically purged it was. Milly herself did everything—so +far at least as he was concerned—Milly +herself, and Milly's house, and Milly's hospitality, +and Milly's manner, and Milly's character, and, perhaps +still more than anything else, Milly's imagination, +Mrs. Stringham and Sir Luke indeed a little +aiding: whereby he knew the blessing of a fair pretext +to ask himself what more he had to do. Something +incalculable wrought for them—for him and +Kate; something outside, beyond, above themselves, +and doubtless ever so much better than they: which +wasn't a reason, however—its being so much better—for +them not to profit by it. Not to profit by it, so +far as profit could be reckoned, would have been to +go directly against it; and the spirit of generosity at +present engendered in Densher could have felt no +greater pang than by his having to go directly against +Milly. +</p><p> +To go <i>with</i> her was the thing, so far as she could +herself go; which, from the moment her tenure of +her loved palace stretched on, was possible but by his +remaining near her. This remaining was of course +on the face of it the most "marked" of demonstrations—which +was exactly why Kate had required it; +it was so marked that on the very evening of the day +it had taken effect Milly herself hadn't been able not +to reach out to him, with an exquisite awkwardness, +for some account of it. It was as if she had wanted +from him some name that, now they were to be almost +alone together, they could, for their further ease, +know it and call it by—it being, after all, almost +rudimentary that his presence, of which the absence +of the others made quite a different thing, couldn't +but have for himself some definite basis. She only +wondered about the basis it would have for himself, +and how he would describe it; that would quite do +for her—it even would have done for her, he could +see, had he produced some reason merely trivial, had +he said he was waiting for money or clothes, for letters +or for orders from Fleet Street, without which, +as she might have heard, newspaper men never took +a step. He hadn't in the event quite sunk to that; +but he had none the less had there with her, that +night, on Mrs. Stringham's leaving them alone—Mrs. +Stringham proved really prodigious—his acquaintance +with a shade of awkwardness darker than +any Milly could know. He had supposed himself +beforehand, on the question of what he was doing or +pretending, in possession of some tone that would +serve; but there were three minutes of his feeling incapable +of promptness quite in the same degree in which +a gentleman whose pocket has been picked feels incapable +of purchase. It even didn't help him, oddly, +that he was sure Kate would in some way have spoken +for him—or rather not so much in some way as in +one very particular way. He hadn't asked her, at +the last, what she might, in the connexion, have said; +nothing would have induced him to put such a question +after she had been to see him: his lips were so +sealed by that passage, his spirit in fact so hushed, +in respect to any charge upon her freedom. There +was something he could only therefore read back into +the probabilities, and when he left the palace an hour +afterwards it was with a sense of having breathed +there, in the very air, the truth he had been guessing. +</p><p> +Just this perception it was, however, that had made +him for the time ugly to himself in his awkwardness. +It was horrible, with this creature, to <i>be</i> awkward; +it was odious to be seeking excuses for the relation +that involved it. Any relation that involved it was +by the very fact as much discredited as a dish would +be at dinner if one had to take medicine as a sauce. +What Kate would have said in one of the young women's +last talks was that—if Milly absolutely must +have the truth about it—Mr. Densher was staying +because she had really seen no way but to require +it of him. If he stayed he didn't follow her—or +didn't appear to her aunt to be doing so; and when +she kept him from following her Mrs. Lowder couldn't +pretend, in scenes, the renewal of which at this time +of day was painful, that she after all didn't snub him +as she might. She did nothing in fact <i>but</i> snub him—wouldn't +that have been part of the story?—only +Aunt Maud's suspicions were of the sort that had repeatedly +to be dealt with. He had been, by the same +token, reasonable enough—as he now, for that matter, +well might; he had consented to oblige them, +aunt and niece, by giving the plainest sign possible +that he could exist away from London. To exist +away from London was to exist away from Kate Croy—which +was a gain, much appreciated, to the latter's +comfort. There was a minute, at this hour, out of +Densher's three, during which he knew the terror of +Milly's uttering some such allusion to their friend's +explanation as he must meet with words that wouldn't +destroy it. To destroy it was to destroy everything, +to destroy probably Kate herself, to destroy in particular +by a breach of faith still uglier than anything +else the beauty of their own last passage. He had +given her his word of honour that if she would come +to him he would act absolutely in her sense, and he +had done so with a full enough vision of what her +sense implied. What it implied for one thing was that +to-night in the great saloon, noble in its half-lighted +beauty, and straight in the white face of his young +hostess, divine in her trust, or at any rate inscrutable +in her mercy—what it implied was that he should +lie with his lips. The single thing, of all things, that +could save him from it would be Milly's letting him +off after having thus scared him. What made her +mercy inscrutable was that if she had already more +than once saved him it was yet apparently without +knowing how nearly he was lost. +</p><p> +These were transcendent motions, not the less +blest for being obscure; whereby yet once more he +was to feel the pressure lighten. He was kept on his +feet in short by the felicity of her not presenting him +with Kate's version as aversion to adopt. He couldn't +stand up to lie—he felt as if he should have to go +down on his knees. As it was he just sat there shaking +a little for nervousness the leg he had crossed over +the other. She was sorry for his suffered snub, but +he had nothing more to subscribe to, to perjure himself +about, than the three or four inanities he had, +on his own side, feebly prepared for the crisis. He +scrambled a little higher than the reference to money +and clothes, letters and directions from his manager; +but he brought out the beauty of the chance for him—there +before him like a temptress painted by Titian—to +do a little quiet writing. He was vivid for a moment +on the difficulty of writing quietly in London; +and he was precipitate, almost explosive, on his idea, +long cherished, of a book. +</p><p> +The explosion lighted her face. "You'll do your +book here?" +</p><p> +"I hope to begin it." +</p><p> +"It's something you haven't begun?" +</p><p> +"Well, only just." +</p><p> +"And since you came?" +</p><p> +She was so full of interest that he shouldn't perhaps +after all be too easily let off. "I tried to think +a few days ago that I had broken ground." +</p><p> +Scarcely anything, it was indeed clear, could have +let him in deeper. "I'm afraid we've made an awful +mess of your time." +</p><p> +"Of course you have. But what I'm hanging on +for now is precisely to repair that ravage." +</p><p> +"Then you mustn't mind me, you know." +</p><p> +"You'll see," he tried to say with ease, "how little +I shall mind anything." +</p><p> +"You'll want"—Milly had thrown herself into it—"the +best part of your days." +</p><p> +He thought a moment: he did what he could to +wreathe it in smiles. "Oh I shall make shift with +the worst part. The best will be for <i>you</i>." And he +wished Kate could hear him. It didn't help him +moreover that he visibly, even pathetically, imaged +to her by such touches his quest for comfort against +discipline. He was to bury Kate's so signal snub, and +also the hard law she had now laid on him, under a +high intellectual effort. This at least was his crucifixion—that +Milly was so interested. She was so interested +that she presently asked him if he found his rooms +propitious, while he felt that in just decently answering +her he put on a brazen mask. He should need +it quite particularly were she to express again her +imagination of coming to tea with him—an extremity +that he saw he was not to be spared. "We depend +on you, Susie and I, you know, not to forget we're +coming"—the extremity was but to face that remainder, +yet it demanded all his tact. Facing their +visit itself—to that, no matter what he might have +to do, he would never consent, as we know, to be +pushed; and this even though it might be exactly +such a demonstration as would figure for him at the +top of Kate's list of his proprieties. He could wonder +freely enough, deep within, if Kate's view of that especial +propriety had not been modified by a subsequent +occurrence; but his deciding that it was quite +likely not to have been had no effect on his own preference +for tact. It pleased him to think of "tact" +as his present prop in doubt; that glossed his predicament +over, for it was of application among the sensitive +and the kind. He wasn't inhuman, in fine, so long +as it would serve. It had to serve now, accordingly, +to help him not to sweeten Milly's hopes. He didn't +want to be rude to them, but he still less wanted them +to flower again in the particular connexion; so that, +casting about him in his anxiety for a middle way to +meet her, he put his foot, with unhappy effect, just +in the wrong place. "Will it be safe for you to break +into your custom of not leaving the house?" +</p><p> +"'Safe'—?" She had for twenty seconds an +exquisite pale glare. Oh but he didn't need it, by +that time, to wince; he had winced for himself as +soon as he had made his mistake. He had done what, +so unforgettably, she had asked him in London not +to do; he had touched, all alone with her here, the +supersensitive nerve of which she had warned him. +He had not, since the occasion in London, touched it +again till now; but he saw himself freshly warned that +it was able to bear still less. So for the moment he +knew as little what to do as he had ever known it in his +life. He couldn't emphasise that he thought of her as +dying, yet he couldn't pretend he thought of her as +indifferent to precautions. Meanwhile too she had +narrowed his choice. "You suppose me so awfully +bad?" +</p><p> +He turned, in his pain, within himself; but by the +time the colour had mounted to the roots of his hair +he had found what he wanted. "I'll believe whatever +you tell me." +</p><p> +"Well then, I'm splendid." +</p><p> +"Oh I don't need you to tell me that." +</p><p> +"I mean I'm capable of life." +</p><p> +"I've never doubted it." +</p><p> +"I mean," she went on, "that I want so to live—!" +</p><p> +"Well?" he asked while she paused with the intensity +of it. +</p><p> +"Well, that I know I <i>can</i>." +</p><p> +"Whatever you do?" He shrank from solemnity +about it. +</p><p> +"Whatever I do. If I want to." +</p><p> +"If you want to do it?" +</p><p> +"If I want to live. I <i>can</i>," Milly repeated. +</p><p> +He had clumsily brought it on himself, but he +hesitated with all the pity of it. "Ah then that I believe." +</p><p> +"I will, I will," she declared; yet with the weight +of it somehow turned for him to mere light and sound. +</p><p> +He felt himself smiling through a mist. "You +simply must!" +</p><p> +It brought her straight again to the fact. "Well +then, if you say it, why mayn't we pay you our visit?" +</p><p> +"Will it help you to live?" +</p><p> +"Every little helps," she laughed; "and it's very +little for me, in general, to stay at home. Only I +shan't want to miss it—!" +</p><p> +"Yes?"—she had dropped again. +</p><p> +"Well, on the day you give us a chance." +</p><p> +It was amazing what so brief an exchange had at +this point done with him. His great scruple suddenly +broke, giving way to something inordinately strange, +something of a nature to become clear to him only +when he had left her. "You can come," he said, +"when you like." +</p><p> +What had taken place for him, however—the +drop, almost with violence, of everything but a sense +of her own reality—apparently showed in his face or +his manner, and even so vividly that she could take +it for something else. "I see how you feel—that +I'm an awful bore about it and that, sooner than have +any such upset, you'll go. So it's no matter." +</p><p> +"No matter? Oh!"—he quite protested now. +</p><p> +"If it drives you away to escape us. We want you +not to go." +</p><p> +It was beautiful how she spoke for Mrs. Stringham. +Whatever it was, at any rate, he shook his head. "I +won't go." +</p><p> +"Then I won't go!" she brightly declared. +</p><p> +"You mean you won't come to me?" +</p><p> +"No—never now. It's over. But it's all right. +I mean, apart from that," she went on, "that I won't +do anything I oughtn't or that I'm not forced to." +</p><p> +"Oh who can ever force you?" he asked with his +hand-to-mouth way, at all times, of speaking for her +encouragement. "You're the least coercible of +creatures." +</p><p> +"Because, you think, I'm so free?" +</p><p> +"The freest person probably now in the world. +You've got everything." +</p><p> +"Well," she smiled, "call it so. I don't complain." +</p><p> +On which again, in spite of himself, it let him in. +"No I know you don't complain." +</p><p> +As soon as he had said it he had himself heard the +pity in it. His telling her she had "everything" was +extravagant kind humour, whereas his knowing so +tenderly that she didn't complain was terrible kind +gravity. Milly felt, he could see, the difference; he +might as well have praised her outright for looking +death in the face. This was the way she just looked +<i>him</i> again, and it was of no attenuation that she took +him up more gently than ever. "It isn't a merit—when +one sees one's way." +</p><p> +"To peace and plenty? Well, I dare say not." +</p><p> +"I mean to keeping what one has." +</p><p> +"Oh that's success. If what one has is good," +Densher said at random, "it's enough to try for." +</p><p> +"Well, it's my limit. I'm not trying for more." +To which then she added with a change: "And now +about your book." +</p><p> +"My book—?" He had got in a moment so far +from it. +</p><p> +"The one you're now to understand that nothing +will induce either Susie or me to run the risk of spoiling." +</p><p> +He cast about, but he made up his mind. "I'm not +doing a book." +</p><p> +"Not what you said?" she asked in a wonder. +"You're not writing?" +</p><p> +He already felt relieved. "I don't know, upon my +honour, what I'm doing." +</p><p> +It made her visibly grave; so that, disconcerted in +another way, he was afraid of what she would see in +it. She saw in fact exactly what he feared, but again +his honour, as he called it, was saved even while she +didn't know she had threatened it. Taking his words +for a betrayal of the sense that he, on his side, <i>might</i> +complain, what she clearly wanted was to urge on him +some such patience as he should be perhaps able to +arrive at with her indirect help. Still more clearly, +however, she wanted to be sure of how far she might +venture; and he could see her make out in a moment +that she had a sort of test. +</p><p> +"Then if it's not for your book—?" +</p><p> +"What <i>am</i> I staying for?" +</p><p> +"I mean with your London work—with all you +have to do. Isn't it rather empty for you?" +</p><p> +"Empty for me?" He remembered how Kate had +held that she might propose marriage, and he wondered +if this were the way she would naturally begin it. +It would leave him, such an incident, he already felt, +at a loss, and the note of his finest anxiety might have +been in the vagueness of his reply. "Oh well—!" +</p><p> +"I ask too many questions?" She settled it for +herself before he could protest. "You stay because +you've got to." +</p><p> +He grasped at it. "I stay because I've got to." +And he couldn't have said when he had uttered it if it +were loyal to Kate or disloyal. It gave her, in a manner, +away; it showed the tip of the ear of her plan. Yet +Milly took it, he perceived, but as a plain statement +of his truth. He was waiting for what Kate would +have told her of—the permission from Lancaster +Gate to come any nearer. To remain friends with +either niece or aunt he mustn't stir without it. All +this Densher read in the girl's sense of the spirit of +his reply; so that it made him feel he was lying, and +he had to think of something to correct that. What +he thought of was, in an instant, "Isn't it enough, +whatever may be one's other complications, to stay +after all for <i>you?</i>" +</p><p> +"Oh you must judge." +</p><p> +He was by this time on his feet to take leave, and +was also at last too restless. The speech in question +at least wasn't disloyal to Kate; that was the very +tone of their bargain. So was it, by being loyal, another +kind of lie, the lie of the uncandid profession +of a motive. He was staying so little "for" Milly +that he was staying positively against her. He didn't, +none the less, know, and at last, thank goodness, +didn't care. The only thing he could say might make +it either better or worse. "Well then, so long as I +don't go, you must think of me all <i>as</i> judging!" +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">II</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +He didn't go home, on leaving her—he didn't want +to; he walked instead, through his narrow ways and +his <i>campi</i> with gothic arches, to a small and comparatively +sequestered café where he had already more +than once found refreshment and comparative repose, +together with solutions that consisted mainly and +pleasantly of further indecisions. It was a literal +fact that those awaiting him there to-night, while he +leaned back on his velvet bench with his head against +a florid mirror and his eyes not looking further than +the fumes of his tobacco, might have been regarded +by him as a little less limp than usual. This wasn't +because, before getting to his feet again, there was a +step he had seen his way to; it was simply because +the acceptance of his position took sharper effect +from his sense of what he had just had to deal with. +When half an hour before, at the palace, he had turned +about to Milly on the question of the impossibility +so inwardly felt, turned about on the spot and under +her eyes, he had acted, by the sudden force of his +seeing much further, seeing how little, how not at all, +impossibilities mattered. It wasn't a case for pedantry; +when people were at <i>her</i> pass everything was allowed. +And her pass was now, as by the sharp click of +a spring, just completely his own—to the extent, as +he felt, of her deep dependence on him. Anything he +should do or shouldn't would have close reference +to her life, which was thus absolutely in his hands—and +ought never to have reference to anything else. +It was on the cards for him that he might kill her—that +was the way he read the cards as he sat in his +customary corner. The fear in this thought made him +let everything go, kept him there actually, all motionless, +for three hours on end. He renewed his consumption +and smoked more cigarettes than he had +ever done in the time. What had come out for him +had come out, with this first intensity, as a terror; +so that action itself, of any sort, the right as well as the +wrong—if the difference even survived—had heard +in it a vivid "Hush!" the injunction to keep from that +moment intensely still. He thought in fact while his +vigil lasted of several different ways for his doing so, +and the hour might have served him as a lesson in +going on tiptoe. +</p><p> +What he finally took home, when he ventured to +leave the place, was the perceived truth that he might +on any other system go straight to destruction. Destruction +was represented for him by the idea of his +really bringing to a point, on Milly's side, anything +whatever. Nothing so "brought," he easily argued, +but <i>must</i> be in one way or another a catastrophe. +He was mixed up in her fate, or her fate, if that should +be better, was mixed up in <i>him</i>, so that a single false +motion might either way snap the coil. They helped +him, it was true, these considerations, to a degree of +eventual peace, for what they luminously amounted +to was that he was to do nothing, and that fell in after +all with the burden laid on him by Kate. He was +only not to budge without the girl's leave—not, +oddly enough at the last, to move without it, whether +further or nearer, any more than without Kate's. +It was to this his wisdom reduced itself—to the need +again simply to be kind. That was the same as being still—as +studying to create the minimum of vibration. +He felt himself as he smoked shut up to a room +on the wall of which something precious was too precariously +hung. A false step would bring it down, +and it must hang as long as possible. He was aware +when he walked away again that even Fleet Street +wouldn't at this juncture successfully touch him. His +manager might wire that he was wanted, but he could +easily be deaf to his manager. His money for the idle +life might be none too much; happily, however, Venice +was cheap, and it was moreover the queer fact that +Milly in a manner supported him. The greatest of +his expenses really was to walk to the palace to dinner. +He didn't want, in short, to give that up, and +he should probably be able, he felt, to stay his breath +and his hand. He should be able to be still enough +through everything. +</p><p> +He tried that for three weeks, with the sense after +a little of not having failed. There had to be a delicate +art in it, for he wasn't trying—quite the contrary—to +be either distant or dull. That would not have +been being "nice," which in its own form was the real +law. That too might just have produced the vibration +he desired to avert; so that he best kept everything in +place by not hesitating or fearing, as it were, to let +himself go—go in the direction, that is to say, of +staying. It depended on where he went; which was +what he meant by taking care. When one went on +tiptoe one could turn off for retreat without betraying +the manoeuvre. Perfect tact—the necessity for which +he had from the first, as we know, happily recognised—was +to keep all intercourse in the key of the absolutely +settled. It was settled thus for instance that +they were indissoluble good friends, and settled as +well that her being the American girl was, just in +time and for the relation they found themselves concerned +in, a boon inappreciable. If, at least, as the +days went on, she was to fall short of her prerogative +of the great national, the great maidenly ease, if she +didn't diviningly and responsively desire and labour +to record herself as possessed of it, this wouldn't +have been for want of Densher's keeping her, with +his idea, well up to it—wouldn't have been in fine +for want of his encouragement and reminder. He +didn't perhaps in so many words speak to her of the +quantity itself as of the thing she was least to intermit; +but he talked of it, freely, in what he flattered himself +was an impersonal way, and this held it there before +her—since he was careful also to talk pleasantly. +It was at once their idea, when all was said, and the +most marked of their conveniences. The type was so +elastic that it could be stretched to almost anything; +and yet, not stretched, it kept down, remained normal, +remained properly within bounds. And he <i>had</i> meanwhile, +thank goodness, without being too much disconcerted, +the sense, for the girl's part of the business, +of the queerest conscious compliance, of her doing +very much what he wanted, even though without her +quite seeing why. She fairly touched this once in saying: +"Oh yes, you like us to be as we are because it's +a kind of facilitation to you that we don't quite measure: +I think one would have to be English to measure +it!"—and that too, strangely enough, without +prejudice to her good nature. She might have been +conceived as doing—that is of being—what he +liked in order perhaps only to judge where it would +take them. They really as it went on <i>saw</i> each other +at the game; she knowing he tried to keep her in tune +with his conception, and he knowing she thus knew +it. Add that he again knew she knew, and yet that +nothing was spoiled by it, and we get a fair impression +of the line they found most completely workable. The +strangest fact of all for us must be that the success +he himself thus promoted was precisely what figured +to his gratitude as the something above and beyond +him, above and beyond Kate, that made for daily +decency. There would scarce have been felicity—certainly +too little of the right lubricant—had not +the national character so invoked been, not less inscrutably +than entirely, in Milly's chords. It made up +her unity and was the one thing he could unlimitedly +take for granted. +</p><p> +He did so then, daily, for twenty days, without +deepened fear of the undue vibration that was keeping +him watchful. He knew in his nervousness that he +was living at best from day to day and from hand to +mouth; yet he had succeeded, he believed, in avoiding +a mistake. All women had alternatives, and Milly's +would doubtless be shaky too; but the national character +was firm in her, whether as all of her, practically, +by this time, or but as a part; the national character +that, in a woman still so young, made of the air +breathed a virtual non-conductor. It wasn't till a +certain occasion when the twenty days had passed +that, going to the palace at tea-time, he was met by +the information that the signorina padrona was not +"receiving." The announcement met him, in the +court, on the lips of one of the gondoliers, met him, +he thought, with such a conscious eye as the knowledge +of his freedoms of access, hitherto conspicuously +shown, could scarce fail to beget. Densher had +not been at Palazzo Leporelli among the mere receivable, +but had taken his place once for all among +the involved and included, so that on being so flagrantly +braved he recognised after a moment the propriety +of a further appeal. Neither of the two ladies, +it appeared, received, and yet Pasquale was not prepared +to say that either was <i>poco bene</i>. He was yet +not prepared to say that either was anything, and he +would have been blank, Densher mentally noted, if +the term could ever apply to members of a race in +whom vacancy was but a nest of darknesses—not a +vain surface, but a place of withdrawal in which +something obscure, something always ominous, indistinguishably +lived. He felt afresh indeed at this +hour the force of the veto laid within the palace on +any mention, any cognition, of the liabilities of its +mistress. The state of her health was never confessed +to there as a reason. How much it might deeply be +taken for one was another matter; of which he grew +fully aware on carrying his question further. This +appeal was to his friend Eugenio, whom he immediately +sent for, with whom, for three rich minutes, +protected from the weather, he was confronted in the +gallery that led from the water-steps to the court, +and whom he always called, in meditation, his friend; +seeing it was so elegantly presumable he would have +put an end to him if he could. That produced a relation +which required a name of its own, an intimacy of +consciousness in truth for each—an intimacy of eye, +of ear, of general sensibility, of everything but tongue. +It had been, in other words, for the five weeks, far +from occult to our young man that Eugenio took a +view of him not less finely formal than essentially +vulgar, but which at the same time he couldn't himself +raise an eyebrow to prevent. It was all in the air +now again; it was as much between them as ever +while Eugenio waited on him in the court. +</p><p> +The weather, from early morning, had turned to +storm, the first sea-storm of the autumn, and Densher +had almost invidiously brought him down the +outer staircase—the massive ascent, the great feature +of the court, to Milly's <i>piano nobile</i>. This was to +pay him—it was the one chance—for all imputations; +the imputation in particular that, clever, <i>tanto +bello</i> and not rich, the young man from London was—by +the obvious way—pressing Miss Theale's fortune +hard. It was to pay him for the further ineffable +intimation that a gentleman must take the young +lady's most devoted servant (interested scarcely less +in the high attraction) for a strangely casual appendage +if he counted in such a connexion on impunity +and prosperity. These interpretations were odious to +Densher for the simple reason that they might have +been so true of the attitude of an inferior man, and +three things alone, accordingly, had kept him from +righting himself. One of these was that his critic +sought expression only in an impersonality, a positive +inhumanity, of politeness; the second was that refinements +of expression in a friend's servant were not a +thing a visitor could take action on; and the third was +the fact that the particular attribution of motive did +him after all no wrong. It was his own fault if the vulgar +view, the view that might have been taken of an +inferior man, happened so incorrigibly to fit him. He +apparently wasn't so different from inferior men as +that came to. If therefore, in fine, Eugenio figured to +him as "my friend" because he was conscious of his +seeing so much of him, what he made him see on the +same lines in the course of their present interview was +ever so much more. Densher felt that he marked +himself, no doubt, as insisting, by dissatisfaction with +the gondolier's answer, on the pursuit taken for +granted in him; and yet felt it only in the augmented, +the exalted distance that was by this time established +between them. Eugenio had of course reflected that a +word to Miss Theale from such a pair of lips would +cost him his place; but he could also bethink himself +that, so long as the word never came—and it was, +on the basis he had arranged, impossible—he enjoyed +the imagination of mounting guard. He had +never so mounted guard, Densher could see, as during +these minutes in the damp <i>loggia</i> where the storm-gusts +were strong; and there came in fact for our +young man, as a result of his presence, a sudden +sharp sense that everything had turned to the dismal. +Something had happened—he didn't know what; +and it wasn't Eugenio who would tell him. What +Eugenio told him was that he thought the ladies—as +if their liability had been equal—were a "leetle" +fatigued, just a "leetle leetle," and without any cause +named for it. It was one of the signs of what Densher +felt in him that, by a profundity, a true deviltry of +resource, he always met the latter's Italian with English +and his English with Italian. He now, as usual, +slightly smiled at him in the process—but ever so +slightly this time, his manner also being attuned, our +young man made out, to the thing, whatever it was, +that constituted the rupture of peace. +</p><p> +This manner, while they stood a long minute facing +each other over all they didn't say, played a part as +well in the sudden jar to Densher's protected state. It +was a Venice all of evil that had broken out for them +alike, so that they were together in their anxiety, if +they really could have met on it; a Venice of cold lashing +rain from a low black sky, of wicked wind raging +through narrow passes, of general arrest and interruption, +with the people engaged in all the water-life +huddled, stranded and wageless, bored and cynical, +under archways and bridges. Our young man's mute +exchange with his friend contained meanwhile such a +depth of reference that, had the pressure been but +slightly prolonged, they might have reached a point at +which they were equally weak. Each had verily something +in mind that would have made a hash of mutual +suspicion and in presence of which, as a possibility, +they were more united than disjoined. But it was to +have been a moment for Densher that nothing could +ease off—not even the formal propriety with which +his interlocutor finally attended him to the <i>portone</i> +and bowed upon his retreat. Nothing had passed +about his coming back, and the air had made itself +felt as a non-conductor of messages. Densher knew +of course, as he took his way again, that Eugenio's +invitation to return was not what he missed; yet he +knew at the same time that what had happened to +him was part of his punishment. Out in the square +beyond the <i>fondamenta</i> that gave access to the land-gate +of the palace, out where the wind was higher, +he fairly, with the thought of it, pulled his umbrella +closer down. It couldn't be, his consciousness, unseen +enough by others—the base predicament of +having, by a concatenation, just to <i>take</i> such things: +such things as the fact that one very acute person in +the world, whom he couldn't dispose of as an interested +scoundrel, enjoyed an opinion of him that there was +no attacking, no disproving, no (what was worst of all) +even noticing. One had come to a queer pass when a +servant's opinion so mattered. Eugenio's would have +mattered even if, as founded on a low vision of appearances, +it had been quite wrong. It was the more +disagreeable accordingly that the vision of appearances +was quite right, and yet was scarcely less low. +</p><p> +Such as it was, at any rate, Densher shook it off +with the more impatience that he was independently +restless. He had to walk in spite of weather, and he +took his course, through crooked ways, to the Piazza, +where he should have the shelter of the galleries. Here, +in the high arcade, half Venice was crowded close, +while, on the Molo, at the limit of the expanse, the old +columns of the Saint Theodore and of the Lion were +the frame of a door wide open to the storm. It was +odd for him, as he moved, that it should have made +such a difference—if the difference wasn't only that +the palace had for the first time failed of a welcome. +There was more, but it came from that; that gave +the harsh note and broke the spell. The wet and the +cold were now to reckon with, and it was to Densher +precisely as if he had seen the obliteration, at a stroke, +of the margin on a faith in which they were all living. +The margin had been his name for it—for the thing +that, though it had held out, could bear no shock. +The shock, in some form, had come, and he wondered +about it while, threading his way among loungers +as vague as himself, he dropped his eyes sightlessly +on the rubbish in shops. There were stretches of +the gallery paved with squares of red marble, greasy +now with the salt spray; and the whole place, in its +huge elegance, the grace of its conception and the +beauty of its detail, was more than ever like a great +drawing-room, the drawing-room of Europe, profaned +and bewildered by some reverse of fortune. He +brushed shoulders with brown men whose hats askew, +and the loose sleeves of whose pendent jackets, made +them resemble melancholy maskers. The tables and +chairs that overflowed from the cafés were gathered, +still with a pretence of service, into the arcade, and here +and there a spectacled German, with his coat-collar +up, partook publicly of food and philosophy. These +were impressions for Densher too, but he had made +the whole circuit thrice before he stopped short, in +front of Florian's, with the force of his sharpest. His +eye had caught a face within the café—he had +spotted an acquaintance behind the glass. The person +he had thus paused long enough to look at twice was +seated, well within range, at a small table on which a +tumbler, half-emptied and evidently neglected, still remained; +and though he had on his knee, as he leaned +back, a copy of a French newspaper—the heading of +the <i>Figaro</i> was visible—he stared straight before him +at the little opposite rococo wall. Densher had him +for a minute in profile, had him for a time during +which his identity produced, however quickly, all the +effect of establishing connexions—connexions startling +and direct; and then, as if it were the one thing +more needed, seized the look, determined by a turn +of the head, that might have been a prompt result of +the sense of being noticed. This wider view showed +him <i>all</i> Lord Mark—Lord Mark as encountered, +several weeks before, the day of the first visit of each +to Palazzo Leporelli. For it had been all Lord Mark +that was going out, on that occasion, as he came in—he +had felt it, in the hall, at the time; and he was +accordingly the less at a loss to recognise in a few +seconds, as renewed meeting brought it to the surface, +the same potential quantity. +</p><p> +It was a matter, the whole passage—it could only +be—but of a few seconds; for as he might neither +stand there to stare nor on the other hand make any +advance from it, he had presently resumed his walk, +this time to another pace. It had been for all the +world, during his pause, as if he had caught his answer +to the riddle of the day. Lord Mark had simply +faced him—as he had faced <i>him</i>, not placed by him, +not at first—as one of the damp shuffling crowd. +Recognition, though hanging fire, had then clearly +come; yet no light of salutation had been struck from +these certainties. Acquaintance between them was +scant enough for neither to take it up. That neither +had done so was not, however, what now mattered, +but that the gentleman at Florian's should be in the +place at all. He couldn't have been in it long; Densher, +as inevitably a haunter of the great meeting-ground, +would in that case have seen him before. He +paid short visits; he was on the wing; the question for +him even as he sat there was of his train or of his boat. +He had come back for something—as a sequel to his +earlier visit; and whatever he had come back for it had +had time to be done. He might have arrived but last +night or that morning; he had already made the difference. +It was a great thing for Densher to get this answer. +He held it close, he hugged it, quite leaned on +it as he continued to circulate. It kept him going and +going—it made him no less restless. But it explained—and +that was much, for with explanations he might +somehow deal. The vice in the air, otherwise, was too +much like the breath of fate. The weather had +changed, the rain was ugly, the wind wicked, the sea +impossible, <i>because</i> of Lord Mark. It was because of +him, <i>a fortiori</i>, that the palace was closed. Densher +went round again twice; he found the visitor each time +as he had found him first. Once, that is, he was staring +before him; the next time he was looking over his +<i>Figaro</i>, which he had opened out. Densher didn't +again stop, but left him apparently unconscious of his +passage—on another repetition of which Lord Mark +had disappeared. He had spent but the day; he would +be off that night; he had now gone to his hotel for +arrangements. These things were as plain to Densher +as if he had had them in words. The obscure had +cleared for him—if cleared it was; there was something +he didn't see, the great thing; but he saw so +round it and so close to it that this was almost as +good. He had been looking at a man who had done +what he had come for, and for whom, as done, it +temporarily sufficed. The man had come again to see +Milly, and Milly had received him. His visit would +have taken place just before or just after luncheon, +and it was the reason why he himself had found her +door shut. +</p><p> +He said to himself that evening, he still said even +on the morrow, that he only wanted a reason, and that +with this perception of one he could now mind, as he +called it, his business. His business, he had settled, +as we know, was to keep thoroughly still; and he +asked himself why it should prevent this that he could +feel, in connexion with the crisis, so remarkably +blameless. He gave the appearances before him all +the benefit of being critical, so that if blame were to +accrue he shouldn't feel he had dodged it. But it +wasn't a bit he who, that day, had touched her, and +if she was upset it wasn't a bit his act. The ability so +to think about it amounted for Densher during several +hours to a kind of exhilaration. The exhilaration +was heightened fairly, besides, by the visible conditions—sharp, +striking, ugly to him—of Lord +Mark's return. His constant view of it, for all the next +hours, of which there were many, was as a demonstration +on the face of it sinister even to his own actual +ignorance. He didn't need, for seeing it as evil, +seeing it as, to a certainty, in a high degree "nasty," +to know more about it than he had so easily and so +wonderfully picked up. You couldn't drop on the +poor girl that way without, by the fact, being brutal. +Such a visit was a descent, an invasion, an aggression, +constituting precisely one or other of the stupid shocks +he himself had so decently sought to spare her. Densher +had indeed drifted by the next morning to the +reflexion—which he positively, with occasion, might +have brought straight out—that the only delicate +and honourable way of treating a person in such a +state was to treat her as <i>he</i>, Merton Densher, did. +With time, actually—for the impression but deepened—this +sense of the contrast, to the advantage +of Merton Densher, became a sense of relief, and +that in turn a sense of escape. It was for all the world—and +he drew a long breath on it—as if a special +danger for him had passed. Lord Mark had, without +in the least intending such a service, got it straight +out of the way. It was <i>he</i>, the brute, who had stumbled +into just the wrong inspiration and who had +therefore produced, for the very person he had wished +to hurt, an impunity that was comparative innocence, +that was almost like purification. The person he +had wished to hurt could only be the person so unaccountably +hanging about. To keep still meanwhile +was, for this person, more comprehensively, to keep +it all up; and to keep it all up was, if that seemed on +consideration best, not, for the day or two, to go +back to the palace. +</p><p> +The day or two passed—stretched to three days; +and with the effect, extraordinarily, that Densher felt +himself in the course of them washed but the more +clean. Some sign would come if his return should +have the better effect; and he was at all events, in +absence, without the particular scruple. It wouldn't +have been meant for him by either of the women that +he was to come back but to face Eugenio. That was +impossible—the being again denied; for it made him +practically answerable, and answerable was what he +wasn't. There was no neglect either in absence, inasmuch +as, from the moment he didn't get in, the one +message he could send up would be some hope on +the score of health. Since accordingly that sort of +expression was definitely forbidden him he had only +to wait—which he was actually helped to do by his +feeling with the lapse of each day more and more +wound up to it. The days in themselves were anything +but sweet; the wind and the weather lasted, the +fireless cold hinted at worse; the broken charm of +the world about was broken into smaller pieces. He +walked up and down his rooms and listened to the +wind—listened also to tinkles of bells and watched +for some servant of the palace. He might get a note, +but the note never came; there were hours when he +stayed at home not to miss it. When he wasn't at +home he was in circulation again as he had been at the +hour of his seeing Lord Mark. He strolled about the +Square with the herd of refugees; he raked the approaches +and the cafés on the chance the brute, as he +now regularly imaged him, <i>might</i> be still there. He +could only be there, he knew, to be received afresh; +and that—one had but to think of it—would be +indeed stiff. He had gone, however—it was proved; +though Densher's care for the question either way +only added to what was most acrid in the taste of his +present ordeal. It all came round to what he was +doing for Milly—spending days that neither relief +nor escape could purge of a smack of the abject. What +was it but abject for a man of his parts to be reduced +to such pastimes? What was it but sordid for him, +shuffling about in the rain, to have to peep into shops +and to consider possible meetings? What was it but +odious to find himself wondering what, as between +him and another man, a possible meeting would produce? +There recurred moments when in spite of +everything he felt no straighter than another man. +And yet even on the third day, when still nothing had +come, he more than ever knew that he wouldn't +have budged for the world. +</p><p> +He thought of the two women, in their silence, at +last—he at all events thought of Milly—as probably, +for her reasons, now intensely wishing him to +go. The cold breath of her reasons was, with everything +else, in the air; but he didn't care for them +any more than for her wish itself, and he would stay +in spite of her, stay in spite of odium, stay in spite +perhaps of some final experience that would be, for +the pain of it, all but unbearable. That would be his +one way, purified though he was, to mark his virtue +beyond any mistake. It would be accepting the disagreeable, +and the disagreeable would be a proof; +a proof of his not having stayed for the thing—the +agreeable, as it were—that Kate had named. The +thing Kate had named was not to have been the +odium of staying in spite of hints. It was part of +the odium as actual too that Kate was, for her +comfort, just now well aloof. These were the first +hours since her flight in which his sense of what she +had done for him on the eve of that event was to +incur a qualification. It was strange, it was perhaps +base, to be thinking such things so soon; but one of +the intimations of his solitude was that she had provided +for herself. She was out of it all, by her act, +as much as he was in it; and this difference grew, +positively, as his own intensity increased. She had +said in their last sharp snatch of talk—sharp though +thickly muffled, and with every word in it final and +deep, unlike even the deepest words they had ever +yet spoken: "Letters? Never—<i>now</i>. Think of it. +Impossible." So that as he had sufficiently caught her +sense—into which he read, all the same, a strange +inconsequence—they had practically wrapped their +understanding in the breach of their correspondence. +He had moreover, on losing her, done justice to her +law of silence; for there was doubtless a finer delicacy +in his not writing to her than in his writing as he must +have written had he spoken of themselves. That +would have been a turbid strain, and her idea had +been to be noble; which, in a degree, was a manner. +Only it left her, for the pinch, comparatively at ease. +And it left <i>him</i>, in the conditions, peculiarly alone. +He was alone, that is, till, on the afternoon of his +third day, in gathering dusk and renewed rain, with +his shabby rooms looking doubtless, in their confirmed +dreariness, for the mere eyes of others, at their +worst, the grinning padrona threw open the door and +introduced Mrs. Stringham. That made at a bound +a difference, especially when he saw that his visitor +was weighted. It appeared part of her weight that +she was in a wet waterproof, that she allowed her +umbrella to be taken from her by the good woman +without consciousness or care, and that her face, +under her veil, richly rosy with the driving wind, +was—and the veil too—as splashed as if the rain +were her tears. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">III</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +They came to it almost immediately; he was to wonder +afterwards at the fewness of their steps. "She +has turned her face to the wall." +</p><p> +"You mean she's worse?" +</p><p> +The poor lady stood there as she had stopped; +Densher had, in the instant flare of his eagerness, his +curiosity, all responsive at sight of her, waved away, +on the spot, the padrona, who had offered to relieve +her of her mackintosh. She looked vaguely about +through her wet veil, intensely alive now to the step +she had taken and wishing it not to have been in +the dark, but clearly, as yet, seeing nothing. "I +don't know <i>how</i> she is—and it's why I've come to +you." +</p><p> +"I'm glad enough you've come," he said, "and +it's quite—you make me feel—as if I had been +wretchedly waiting for you." +</p><p> +She showed him again her blurred eyes—she had +caught at his word. "Have you been wretched?" +</p><p> +Now, however, on his lips, the word expired. It +would have sounded for him like a complaint, and +before something he already made out in his visitor +he knew his own trouble as small. Hers, under her +damp draperies, which shamed his lack of a fire, was +great, and he felt she had brought it all with her. +He answered that he had been patient and above all +that he had been still. "As still as a mouse—you'll +have seen it for yourself. Stiller, for three days together, +than I've ever been in my life. It has seemed +to me the only thing." +</p><p> +This qualification of it as a policy or a remedy was +straightway for his friend, he saw, a light that her +own light could answer. "It has been best. I've +wondered for you. But it has been best," she said +again. +</p><p> +"Yet it has done no good?" +</p><p> +"I don't know. I've been afraid you were gone." +Then as he gave a headshake which, though slow, +was deeply mature: "You <i>won't</i> go?" +</p><p> +"Is to 'go,'" he asked, "to be still?" +</p><p> +"Oh I mean if you'll stay for me." +</p><p> +"I'll do anything for you. Isn't it for you alone +now I can?" +</p><p> +She thought of it, and he could see even more of +the relief she was taking from him. His presence, +his face, his voice, the old rooms themselves, so +meagre yet so charged, where Kate had admirably +been to him—these things counted for her, now she +had them, as the help she had been wanting: so that +she still only stood there taking them all in. With it +however popped up characteristically a throb of her +conscience. What she thus tasted was almost a personal +joy. It told Densher of the three days she on +her side had spent. "Well, anything you do for me—<i>is</i> +for her too. Only, only—!" +</p><p> +"Only nothing now matters?" +</p><p> +She looked at him a minute as if he were the fact +itself that he expressed. "Then you know?" +</p><p> +"Is she dying?" he asked for all answer. +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham waited—her face seemed to +sound him. Then her own reply was strange. "She +hasn't so much as named you. We haven't spoken." +</p><p> +"Not for three days?" +</p><p> +"No more," she simply went on, "than if it were +all over. Not even by the faintest allusion." +</p><p> +"Oh," said Densher with more light, "you mean +you haven't spoken about <i>me?</i>" +</p><p> +"About what else? No more than if you were dead." +</p><p> +"Well," he answered after a moment, "I <i>am</i> dead." +</p><p> +"Then I am," said Susan Shepherd with a drop +of her arms on her waterproof. +</p><p> +It was a tone that, for the minute, imposed itself +in its dry despair; it represented, in the bleak place, +which had no life of its own, none but the life Kate +had left—the sense of which, for that matter, by +mystic channels, might fairly be reaching the visitor—the +very impotence of their extinction. And Densher +had nothing to oppose it withal, nothing but +again: "Is she dying?" +</p><p> +It made her, however, as if these were crudities, +almost material pangs, only say as before: "Then +you know?" +</p><p> +"Yes," he at last returned, "I know. But the +marvel to me is that <i>you</i> do. I've no right in fact to +imagine or to assume that you do." +</p><p> +"You may," said Susan Shepherd, "all the same. +I know." +</p><p> +"Everything?" +</p><p> +Her eyes, through her veil, kept pressing him. "No—not +everything. That's why I've come." +</p><p> +"That I shall really tell you?" With which, as she +hesitated and it affected him, he brought out in a +groan a doubting "Oh, oh!" It turned him from her +to the place itself, which was a part of what was in +him, was the abode, the worn shrine more than ever, +of the fact in possession, the fact, now a thick association, +for which he had hired it. <i>That</i> was not for +telling, but Susan Shepherd was, none the less, so +decidedly wonderful that the sense of it might really +have begun, by an effect already operating, to be a +part of her knowledge. He saw, and it stirred him, +that she hadn't come to judge him; had come rather, +so far as she might dare, to pity. This showed him +her own abasement—that, at any rate, of grief; and +made him feel with a rush of friendliness that he +liked to be with her. The rush had quickened when +she met his groan with an attenuation. +</p><p> +"We shall at all events—if that's anything—be +together." +</p><p> +It was his own good impulse in herself. "It's what +I've ventured to feel. It's much." She replied in +effect, silently, that it was whatever he liked; on which, +so far as he had been afraid for anything, he knew +his fear had dropped. The comfort was huge, for +it gave back to him something precious, over which, +in the effort of recovery, his own hand had too imperfectly +closed. Kate, he remembered, had said to +him, with her sole and single boldness—and also +on grounds he hadn't then measured—that Mrs. +Stringham was a person who <i>wouldn't</i>, at a pinch, +in a stretch of confidence, wince. It was but another +of the cases in which Kate was always showing. "You +don't think then very horridly of me?" +</p><p> +And her answer was the more valuable that it came +without nervous effusion—quite as if she understood +what he might conceivably have believed. She +turned over in fact what she thought, and that was +what helped him. "Oh you've been extraordinary!" +</p><p> +It made him aware the next moment of how they +had been planted there. She took off her cloak with +his aid, though when she had also, accepting a seat, +removed her veil, he recognised in her personal ravage +that the words she had just uttered to him were +the one flower she had to throw. They were all her +consolation for him, and the consolation even still +depended on the event. She sat with him at any rate +in the grey clearance, as sad as a winter dawn, +made by their meeting. The image she again evoked +for him loomed in it but the larger. "She has turned +her face to the wall." +</p><p> +He saw with the last vividness, and it was as if, in +their silences, they were simply so leaving what he +saw. "She doesn't speak at all? I don't mean not +of me." +</p><p> +"Of nothing—of no one." And she went on, +Susan Shepherd, giving it out as she had had to take +it. "She doesn't <i>want</i> to die. Think of her age. +Think of her goodness. Think of her beauty. Think +of all she is. Think of all she <i>has</i>. She lies there stiffening +herself and clinging to it all. So I thank God—!" +the poor lady wound up with a wan inconsequence. +</p><p> +He wondered. "You thank God—?" +</p><p> +"That she's so quiet." +</p><p> +He continued to wonder. "<i>Is</i> she so quiet?" +</p><p> +"She's more than quiet. She's grim. It's what +she has never been. So you see—all these days. I +can't tell you—but it's better so. It would kill me +if she <i>were</i> to tell me." +</p><p> +"To tell you?" He was still at a loss. +</p><p> +"How she feels. How she clings. How she doesn't +want it." +</p><p> +"How she doesn't want to die? Of course she +doesn't want it." He had a long pause, and they +might have been thinking together of what they could +even now do to prevent it. This, however, was not +what he brought out. Milly's "grimness" and the +great hushed palace were present to him; present +with the little woman before him as she must have +been waiting there and listening. "Only, what harm +have <i>you</i> done her?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham looked about in her darkness. "I +don't know. I come and talk of her here with you." +</p><p> +It made him again hesitate. "Does she utterly +hate me?" +</p><p> +"I don't know. How <i>can</i> I? No one ever will." +</p><p> +"She'll never tell?" +</p><p> +"She'll never tell." +</p><p> +Once more he thought. "She must be magnificent." +</p><p> +"She <i>is</i> magnificent." +</p><p> +His friend, after all, helped him, and he turned it, +so far as he could, all over. "Would she see me +again?" +</p><p> +It made his companion stare. "Should you like +to see her?" +</p><p> +"You mean as you describe her?" He felt her +surprise, and it took him some time. "No." +</p><p> +"Ah then!" Mrs. Stringham sighed. +</p><p> +"But if she could bear it I'd do anything." +</p><p> +She had for the moment her vision of this, but it +collapsed. "I don't see what you can do." +</p><p> +"I don't either. But <i>she</i> might." +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham continued to think. "It's too +late." +</p><p> +"Too late for her to see—?" +</p><p> +"Too late." +</p><p> +The very decision of her despair—it was after all +so lucid—kindled in him a heat. "But the doctor, +all the while—?" +</p><p> +"Tacchini? Oh he's kind. He comes. He's +proud of having been approved and coached by a +great London man. He hardly in fact goes away; +so that I scarce know what becomes of his other +patients. He thinks her, justly enough, a great personage; +he treats her like royalty; he's waiting on +events. But she has barely consented to see him, and, +though she has told him, generously—for she <i>thinks</i> +of me, dear creature—that he may come, that he +may stay, for my sake, he spends most of his time +only hovering at her door, prowling through the rooms, +trying to entertain me, in that ghastly saloon, with +the gossip of Venice, and meeting me, in doorways, +in the sala, on the staircase, with an agreeable intolerable +smile. We don't," said Susan Shepherd, "talk +of her." +</p><p> +"By her request?" +</p><p> +"Absolutely. I don't do what she doesn't wish. +We talk of the price of provisions." +</p><p> +"By her request too?" +</p><p> +"Absolutely. She named it to me as a subject when +she said, the first time, that if it would be any comfort +to me he might stay as much as we liked." +</p><p> +Densher took it all in. "But he isn't any comfort +to you!" +</p><p> +"None whatever. That, however," she added, +"isn't his fault. Nothing's any comfort." +</p><p> +"Certainly," Densher observed, "as I but too horribly +feel, <i>I'm</i> not." +</p><p> +"No. But I didn't come for that." +</p><p> +"You came for <i>me</i>." +</p><p> +"Well then call it that." But she looked at him +a moment with eyes filled full, and something came +up in her the next instant from deeper still. "I came +at bottom of course—" +</p><p> +"You came at bottom of course for our friend herself. +But if it's, as you say, too late for me to do anything?" +</p><p> +She continued to look at him, and with an irritation, +which he saw grow in her, from the truth itself. +"So I did say. But, with you here"—and she +turned her vision again strangely about her—"with +you here, and with everything, I feel we mustn't +abandon her." +</p><p> +"God forbid we should abandon her." +</p><p> +"Then you <i>won't?</i>" His tone had made her flush +again. +</p><p> +"How do you mean I 'won't,' if she abandons <i>me?</i> +What can I do if she won't see me?" +</p><p> +"But you said just now you wouldn't like it." +</p><p> +"I said I shouldn't like it in the light of what you +tell me. I shouldn't like it only to see her as you make +me. I should like it if I could help her. But even +then," Densher pursued without faith, "she would +have to want it first herself. And there," he continued +to make out, "is the devil of it. She <i>won't</i> want +it herself. She <i>can't!</i>" +</p><p> +He had got up in his impatience of it, and she +watched him while he helplessly moved. "There's +one thing you can do. There's only that, and even +for that there are difficulties. But there <i>is</i> that." He +stood before her with his hands in his pockets, and +he had soon enough, from her eyes, seen what was +coming. She paused as if waiting for his leave to +utter it, and as he only let her wait they heard in +the silence, on the Canal, the renewed downpour of +rain. She had at last to speak, but, as if still with her +fear, she only half-spoke. "I think you really know +yourself what it is." +</p><p> +He did know what it was, and with it even, as she +said—rather!—there were difficulties. He turned +away on them, on everything, for a moment; he +moved to the other window and looked at the sheeted +channel, wider, like a river, where the houses opposite, +blurred and belittled, stood at twice their distance. +Mrs. Stringham said nothing, was as mute in fact, +for the minute, as if she had "had" him, and he was +the first again to speak. When he did so, however, +it was not in straight answer to her last remark—he +only started from that. He said, as he came back +to her, "Let me, you know, <i>see</i>—one must understand," +almost as if he had for the time accepted it. +And what he wished to understand was where, on the +essence of the question, was the voice of Sir Luke +Strett. If they talked of not giving her up shouldn't +<i>he</i> be the one least of all to do it? "Aren't we, at the +worst, in the dark without him?" +</p><p> +"Oh," said Mrs. Stringham, "it's he who has kept +me going. I wired the first night, and he answered +like an angel. He'll come like one. Only he can't +arrive, at the nearest, till Thursday afternoon." +</p><p> +"Well then that's something." +</p><p> +She considered. "Something—yes. She likes +him." +</p><p> +"Rather! I can see it still, the face with which, +when he was here in October—that night when she +was in white, when she had people there and those +musicians—she committed him to my care. It was +beautiful for both of us—she put us in relation. She +asked me, for the time, to take him about; I did so, +and we quite hit it off. That proved," Densher said +with a quick sad smile, "that she liked him." +</p><p> +"He liked <i>you</i>," Susan Shepherd presently risked. +</p><p> +"Ah I know nothing about that." +</p><p> +"You ought to then. He went with you to galleries +and churches; you saved his time for him, showed him +the choicest things, and you perhaps will remember +telling me myself that if he hadn't been a great surgeon +he might really have been a great judge. I mean +of the beautiful." +</p><p> +"Well," the young man admitted, "that's what +he is—in having judged <i>her</i>. He hasn't," he went +on, "judged her for nothing. His interest in her—which +we must make the most of—can only be supremely +beneficent." +</p><p> +He still roamed, while he spoke, with his hands in +his pockets, and she saw him, on this, as her eyes +sufficiently betrayed, trying to keep his distance +from the recognition he had a few moments before +partly confessed to. "I'm glad," she dropped, "you +like him!" +</p><p> +There was something for him in the sound of it. +"Well, I do no more, dear lady, than you do yourself. +Surely <i>you</i> like him. Surely, when he was here, +we all liked him." +</p><p> +"Yes, but I seem to feel I know what he thinks. +And I should think, with all the time you spent with +him, you'd know it," she said, "yourself." +</p><p> +Densher stopped short, though at first without a +word. "We never spoke of her. Neither of us mentioned +her, even to sound her name, and nothing +whatever in connexion with her passed between us." +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham stared up at him, surprised at this +picture. But she had plainly an idea that after an +instant resisted it. "That was his professional propriety." +</p><p> +"Precisely. But it was also my sense of that virtue +in him, and it was something more besides." And +he spoke with sudden intensity. "I couldn't <i>talk</i> to +him about her!" +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Susan Shepherd. +</p><p> +"I can't talk to any one about her." +</p><p> +"Except to <i>me</i>," his friend continued. +</p><p> +"Except to you." The ghost of her smile, a gleam +of significance, had waited on her words, and it kept +him, for honesty, looking at her. For honesty too—that +is for his own words—he had quickly coloured: +he was sinking so, at a stroke, the burden of his discourse +with Kate. His visitor, for the minute, while +their eyes met, might have been watching him hold +it down. And he <i>had</i> to hold it down—the effort +of which, precisely, made him red. He couldn't let +it come up; at least not yet. She might make what she +would of it. He attempted to repeat his statement, but +he really modified it. "Sir Luke, at all events, had +nothing to tell me, and I had nothing to tell him. +Make-believe talk was impossible for us, and—" +</p><p> +"And <i>real</i>"—she had taken him right up with a +huge emphasis—"was more impossible still." No +doubt—he didn't deny it; and she had straightway +drawn her conclusion. "Then that proves what I +say—that there were immensities between you. +Otherwise you'd have chattered." +</p><p> +"I dare say," Densher granted, "we were both +thinking of her." +</p><p> +"You were neither of you thinking of any one else. +That's why you kept together." +</p><p> +Well, that too, if she desired, he took from her; but +he came straight back to what he had originally said. +"I haven't a notion, all the same, of what he thinks." +She faced him, visibly, with the question into which +he had already observed that her special shade of +earnestness was perpetually flowering, right and left—"Are +you <i>very</i> sure?"—and he could only note +her apparent difference from himself. "You, I judge, +believe that he thinks she's gone." +</p><p> +She took it, but she bore up. "It doesn't matter +what I believe." +</p><p> +"Well, we shall see"—and he felt almost basely +superficial. More and more, for the last five minutes, +had he known she had brought something with +her, and never in respect to anything had he had such +a wish to postpone. He would have liked to put +everything off till Thursday; he was sorry it was now +Tuesday; he wondered if he were afraid. Yet it +wasn't of Sir Luke, who was coming; nor of Milly, +who was dying; nor of Mrs. Stringham, who was +sitting there. It wasn't, strange to say, of Kate either, +for Kate's presence affected him suddenly as having +swooned or trembled away. Susan Shepherd's, thus +prolonged, had cast on it some influence under which +it had ceased to act. She was as absent to his sensibility +as she had constantly been, since her departure, +absent, as an echo or a reference, from the palace; and +it was the first time, among the objects now surrounding +him, that his sensibility so noted her. He knew +soon enough that it was of himself he was afraid, and +that even, if he didn't take care, he should infallibly +be more so. "Meanwhile," he added for his companion, +"it has been everything for me to see you." +She slowly rose at the words, which might almost +have conveyed to her the hint of his taking care. +She stood there as if she had in fact seen him abruptly +moved to dismiss her. But the abruptness would have +been in this case so marked as fairly to offer ground +for insistence to her imagination of his state. It would +take her moreover, she clearly showed him she was +thinking, but a minute or two to insist. Besides, she +had already said it. "Will you do it if <i>he</i> asks you? +I mean if Sir Luke himself puts it to you. And will +you give him"—oh she was earnest now!—"the +opportunity to put it to you?" +</p><p> +"The opportunity to put what?" +</p><p> +"That if you deny it to her, that may still do something." +</p><p> +Densher felt himself—as had already once befallen +him in the quarter of an hour—turn red to the top +of his forehead. Turning red had, however, for him, +as a sign of shame, been, so to speak, discounted: +his consciousness of it at the present moment was +rather as a sign of his fear. It showed him sharply +enough of what he was afraid. "If I deny what to +her?" +</p><p> +Hesitation, on the demand, revived in her, for +hadn't he all along been letting her see that he knew? +"Why, what Lord Mark told her." +</p><p> +"And what did Lord Mark tell her?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham had a look of bewilderment—of +seeing him as suddenly perverse. "I've been judging +that you yourself know." And it was she who +now blushed deep. +</p><p> +It quickened his pity for her, but he was beset too +by other things. "Then <i>you</i> know—" +</p><p> +"Of his dreadful visit?" She stared. "Why it's +what has done it." +</p><p> +"Yes—I understand that. But you also know—" +</p><p> +He had faltered again, but all she knew she now +wanted to say. "I'm speaking," she said soothingly, +"of what he told her. It's <i>that</i> that I've taken you as +knowing." +</p><p> +"Oh!" he sounded in spite of himself. +</p><p> +It appeared to have for her, he saw the next moment, +the quality of relief, as if he had supposed her +thinking of something else. Thereupon, straightway, +that lightened it. "Oh you thought I've known +it for <i>true!</i>" +</p><p> +Her light had heightened her flush, and he saw +that he had betrayed himself. Not, however, that it +mattered, as he immediately saw still better. There +it was now, all of it at last, and this at least there was +no postponing. They were left with her idea—the +one she was wishing to make him recognise. He had +expressed ten minutes before his need to understand, +and she was acting after all but on that. Only what +he was to understand was no small matter; it might +be larger even than as yet appeared. +</p><p> +He took again one of his turns, not meeting what +she had last said; he mooned a minute, as he would +have called it, at a window; and of course she could +see that she had driven him to the wall. She did +clearly, without delay, see it; on which her sense +of having "caught" him became as promptly a +scruple, which she spoke as if not to press. "What +I mean is that he told her you've been all the while +engaged to Miss Croy." +</p><p> +He gave a jerk round; it was almost—to hear it—the +touch of a lash; and he said—idiotically, as he +afterwards knew—the first thing that came into his +head. "All <i>what</i> while?" +</p><p> +"Oh it's not I who say it." She spoke in gentleness. +"I only repeat to you what he told her." +</p><p> +Densher, from whom an impatience had escaped, +had already caught himself up. "Pardon my brutality. +Of course I know what you're talking about. +I saw him, toward the evening," he further explained, +"in the Piazza; only just saw him—through the +glass at Florian's—without any words. In fact +I scarcely know him—there wouldn't have been +occasion. It was but once, moreover—he must have +gone that night. But I knew he wouldn't have come +for nothing, and I turned it over—what he would +have come for." +</p><p> +Oh so had Mrs. Stringham. "He came for exasperation." +</p><p> +Densher approved. "He came to let her know +that he knows better than she for whom it was she +had a couple of months before, in her fool's paradise, +refused him." +</p><p> +"How you <i>do</i> know!"—and Mrs. Stringham +almost smiled. +</p><p> +"I know that—but I don't know the good it does +him." +</p><p> +"The good, he thinks, if he has patience—not too +much—may be to come. He doesn't know what he +has done to her. Only <i>we</i>, you see, do that." +</p><p> +He saw, but he wondered. "She kept from him—what +she felt?" +</p><p> +"She was able—I'm sure of it—not to show anything. +He dealt her his blow, and she took it without +a sign." Mrs. Stringham, it was plain, spoke by +book, and it brought into play again her appreciation +of what she related. "She's magnificent." +</p><p> +Densher again gravely assented. "Magnificent!" +</p><p> +"And <i>he</i>," she went on, "is an idiot of idiots." +</p><p> +"An idiot of idiots." For a moment, on it all, on +the stupid doom in it, they looked at each other. +"Yet he's thought so awfully clever." +</p><p> +"So awfully—it's Maud Lowder's own view. +And he was nice, in London," said Mrs. Stringham, +"to <i>me</i>. One could almost pity him—he has had +such a good conscience." +</p><p> +"That's exactly the inevitable ass." +</p><p> +"Yes, but it wasn't—I could see from the only +few things she first told me—that he meant <i>her</i> the +least harm. He intended none whatever." +</p><p> +"That's always the ass at his worst," Densher returned. +"He only of course meant harm to me." +</p><p> +"And good to himself—he thought that would +come. He had been unable to swallow," Mrs. Stringham +pursued, "what had happened on his other visit. +He had been then too sharply humiliated." +</p><p> +"Oh I saw that." +</p><p> +"Yes, and he also saw you. He saw you received, +as it were, while he was turned away." +</p><p> +"Perfectly," Densher said—"I've filled it out. +And also that he has known meanwhile for <i>what</i> I +was then received. For a stay of all these weeks. +He had had it to think of." +</p><p> +"Precisely—it was more than he could bear. But +he has it," said Mrs. Stringham, "to think of still." +</p><p> +"Only, after all," asked Densher, who himself +somehow, at this point, was having more to think of +even than he had yet had—"only, after all, how has +he happened to know? That is, to know enough." +</p><p> +"What do you call enough?" Mrs. Stringham enquired. +</p><p> +"He can only have acted—it would have been his +sole safety—from full knowledge." +</p><p> +He had gone on without heeding her question; +but, face to face as they were, something had none +the less passed between them. It was this that, after +an instant, made her again interrogative. "What +do you mean by full knowledge?" +</p><p> +Densher met it indirectly. "Where has he been +since October?" +</p><p> +"I think he has been back to England. He came +in fact, I've reason to believe, straight from there." +</p><p> +"Straight to do this job? All the way for his half-hour?" +</p><p> +"Well, to try again—with the help perhaps of a +new fact. To make himself possibly right with her—a +different attempt from the other. He had at any +rate something to tell her, and he didn't know his +opportunity would reduce itself to half an hour. Or +perhaps indeed half an hour would be just what was +most effective. It <i>has</i> been!" said Susan Shepherd. +</p><p> +Her companion took it in, understanding but too +well; yet as she lighted the matter for him more, +really, than his own courage had quite dared—putting +the absent dots on several i's—he saw new questions +swarm. They had been till now in a bunch, +entangled and confused; and they fell apart, each +showing for itself. The first he put to her was at +any rate abrupt. "Have you heard of late from Mrs. +Lowder." +</p><p> +"Oh yes, two or three times. She depends naturally +upon news of Milly." +</p><p> +He hesitated. "And does she depend, naturally, +upon news of <i>me?</i>" +</p><p> +His friend matched for an instant his deliberation. +</p><p> +"I've given her none that hasn't been decently +good. This will have been the first." +</p><p> +"'This'?" Densher was thinking. +</p><p> +"Lord Mark's having been here, and her being as +she is." +</p><p> +He thought a moment longer. "What has Mrs. +Lowder written about him? Has she written that he +has been with them?" +</p><p> +"She has mentioned him but once—it was in her +letter before the last. Then she said something." +</p><p> +"And what did she say?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham produced it with an effort. "Well +it was in reference to Miss Croy. That she thought +Kate was thinking of him. Or perhaps I should say +rather that he was thinking of <i>her</i>—only it seemed +this time to have struck Maud that he was seeing the +way more open to him." +</p><p> +Densher listened with his eyes on the ground, but +he presently raised them to speak, and there was that +in his face which proved him aware of a queerness in +his question. "Does she mean he has been encouraged +to <i>propose</i> to her niece?" +</p><p> +"I don't know what she means." +</p><p> +"Of course not"—he recovered himself; "and I +oughtn't to seem to trouble you to piece together +what I can't piece myself. Only I 'guess,'" he added, +"I <i>can</i> piece it." +</p><p> +She spoke a little timidly, but she risked it. "I +dare say I can piece it too." +</p><p> +It was one of the things in her—and his conscious +face took it from her as such—that from the moment +of her coming in had seemed to mark for him, +as to what concerned him, the long jump of her perception. +They had parted four days earlier with +many things, between them, deep down. But these +things were now on their troubled surface, and it +wasn't he who had brought them so quickly up. +Women were wonderful—at least this one was. But +so, not less, was Milly, was Aunt Maud; so, most of +all, was his very Kate. Well, he already knew what +he had been feeling about the circle of petticoats. +They were all <i>such</i> petticoats! It was just the fineness +of his tangle. The sense of that, in its turn, for us too, +might have been not unconnected with his putting +to his visitor a question that quite passed over her +remark. "Has Miss Croy meanwhile written to our +friend?" +</p><p> +"Oh," Mrs. Stringham amended, "<i>her</i> friend also. +But not a single word that I know of." +</p><p> +He had taken it for certain she hadn't—the thing +being after all but a shade more strange than his +having himself, with Milly, never for six weeks mentioned +the young lady in question. It was for that +matter but a shade more strange than Milly's not having +mentioned her. In spite of which, and however +inconsequently, he blushed anew for Kate's silence. +He got away from it in fact as quickly as possible, and +the furthest he could get was by reverting for a minute +to the man they had been judging. "How did he +manage to get <i>at</i> her? She had only—with what had +passed between them before—to say she couldn't +see him." +</p><p> +"Oh she was disposed to kindness. She was easier," +the good lady explained with a slight embarrassment, +"than at the other time." +</p><p> +"Easier?" +</p><p> +"She was off her guard. There was a difference." +</p><p> +"Yes. But exactly not <i>the</i> difference." +</p><p> +"Exactly not the difference of her having to be +harsh. Perfectly. She could afford to be the opposite." +With which, as he said nothing, she just impatiently +completed her sense. "She had had <i>you</i> +here for six weeks." +</p><p> +"Oh!" Densher softly groaned. +</p><p> +"Besides, I think he must have written her first—written +I mean in a tone to smooth his way. That it +would be a kindness to himself. Then on the spot—" +</p><p> +"On the spot," Densher broke in, "he unmasked? +The horrid little beast!" +</p><p> +It made Susan Shepherd turn slightly pale, though +quickening, as for hope, the intensity of her look at +him. "Oh he went off without an alarm." +</p><p> +"And he must have gone off also without a hope." +</p><p> +"Ah that, certainly." +</p><p> +"Then it <i>was</i> mere base revenge. Hasn't he known +her, into the bargain," the young man asked—"didn't +he, weeks before, see her, judge her, feel her, +as having for such a suit as his not more perhaps than +a few months to live?" +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham at first, for reply, but looked at +him in silence; and it gave more force to what she +then remarkably added. "He has doubtless been +aware of what you speak of, just as you have yourself +been aware." +</p><p> +"He has wanted her, you mean, just <i>because</i>—?" +</p><p> +"Just because," said Susan Shepherd. +</p><p> +"The hound!" Merton Densher brought out. He +moved off, however, with a hot face, as soon as he +had spoken, conscious again of an intention in his +visitor's reserve. Dusk was now deeper, and after he +had once more taken counsel of the dreariness without +he turned to his companion. "Shall we have lights—a +lamp or the candles?" +</p><p> +"Not for me." +</p><p> +"Nothing?" +</p><p> +"Not for me." +</p><p> +He waited at the window another moment and then +faced his friend with a thought. "He <i>will</i> have proposed +to Miss Croy. That's what has happened." +</p><p> +Her reserve continued. "It's you who must +judge." +</p><p> +"Well, I do judge. Mrs. Lowder will have done +so too—only <i>she</i>, poor lady, wrong. Miss Croy's +refusal of him will have struck him"—Densher continued +to make it out—"as a phenomenon requiring +a reason." +</p><p> +"And you've been clear to him <i>as</i> the reason?" +</p><p> +"Not too clear—since I'm sticking here and +since that has been a fact to make his descent on +Miss Theale relevant. But clear enough. He has believed," +said Densher bravely, "that I may have been +a reason at Lancaster Gate, and yet at the same time +have been up to something in Venice." +</p><p> +Mrs. Stringham took her courage from his own. +"'Up to' something? Up to what?" +</p><p> +"God knows. To some 'game,' as they say. To +some deviltry. To some duplicity." +</p><p> +"Which of course," Mrs. Stringham observed, "is +a monstrous supposition." Her companion, after a +stiff minute—sensibly long for each—fell away +from her again, and then added to it another minute, +which he spent once more looking out with his hands +in his pockets. This was no answer, he perfectly knew, +to what she had dropped, and it even seemed to state +for his own ears that no answer was possible. She +left him to himself, and he was glad she had declined, +for their further colloquy, the advantage of lights. +These would have been an advantage mainly to herself. +Yet she got her benefit too even from the absence +of them. It came out in her very tone when at +last she addressed him—so differently, for confidence—in +words she had already used. "If Sir Luke +himself asks it of you as something you can do for +<i>him</i>, will you deny to Milly herself what she has been +made so dreadfully to believe?" +</p><p> +Oh how he knew he hung back! But at last he +said: "You're absolutely certain then that she does +believe it?" +</p><p> +"Certain?" She appealed to their whole situation. +"Judge!" +</p><p> +He took his time again to judge. "Do <i>you</i> believe +it?" +</p><p> +He was conscious that his own appeal pressed her +hard; it eased him a little that her answer must be a +pain to her discretion. She answered none the less, +and he was truly the harder pressed. "What I believe +will inevitably depend more or less on your action. +You can perfectly settle it—if you care. I promise +to believe you down to the ground if, to save her life, +you consent to a denial." +</p><p> +"But a denial, when it comes to that—confound +the whole thing, don't you see!—of exactly what?" +</p><p> +It was as if he were hoping she would narrow; but +in fact she enlarged. "Of everything." +</p><p> +Everything had never even yet seemed to him so +incalculably much. "Oh!" he simply moaned into +the gloom. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">IV</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +The near Thursday, coming nearer and bringing Sir +Luke Strett, brought also blessedly an abatement of +other rigours. The weather changed, the stubborn +storm yielded, and the autumn sunshine, baffled for +many days, but now hot and almost vindictive, came +into its own again and, with an almost audible paean, +a suffusion of bright sound that was one with the +bright colour, took large possession. Venice glowed +and plashed and called and chimed again; the air was +like a clap of hands, and the scattered pinks, yellows, +blues, sea-greens, were like a hanging-out of vivid +stuffs, a laying-down of fine carpets. Densher rejoiced +in this on the occasion of his going to the station +to meet the great doctor. He went after consideration, +which, as he was constantly aware, was at +present his imposed, his only, way of doing anything. +That was where the event had landed him—where +no event in his life had landed him before. He had +thought, no doubt, from the day he was born, much +more than he had acted; except indeed that he +remembered thoughts—a few of them—which at +the moment of their coming to him had thrilled him +almost like adventures. But anything like his actual +state he had not, as to the prohibition of impulse, +accident, range—the prohibition in other words of +freedom—hitherto known. The great oddity was +that if he had felt his arrival, so few weeks back, especially +as an adventure, nothing could now less resemble +one than the fact of his staying. It would be +an adventure to break away, to depart, to go back, +above all, to London, and tell Kate Croy he had done +so; but there was something of the merely, the almost +meanly, obliged and involved sort in his going +on as he was. That was the effect in particular of +Mrs. Stringham's visit, which had left him as with +such a taste in his mouth of what he couldn't do. It +had made this quantity clear to him, and yet had +deprived him of the sense, the other sense, of what, +for a refuge, he possibly <i>could</i>. +</p><p> +It was but a small make-believe of freedom, he +knew, to go to the station for Sir Luke. Nothing +equally free, at all events, had he yet turned over so +long. What then was his odious position but that +again and again he was afraid? He stiffened himself +under this consciousness as if it had been a tax +levied by a tyrant. He hadn't at any time proposed +to himself to live long enough for fear to preponderate +in his life. Such was simply the advantage it had +actually got of him. He was afraid for instance that +an advance to his distinguished friend might prove +for him somehow a pledge or a committal. He was +afraid of it as a current that would draw him too +far; yet he thought with an equal aversion of being +shabby, being poor, through fear. What finally prevailed +with him was the reflexion that, whatever +might happen, the great man had, after that occasion +at the palace, their young woman's brief sacrifice to +society—and the hour of Mrs. Stringham's appeal +had brought it well to the surface—shown him +marked benevolence. Mrs. Stringham's comments on +the relation in which Milly had placed them made +him—it was unmistakeable—feel things he perhaps +hadn't felt. It was in the spirit of seeking a chance +to feel again adequately whatever it was he had missed—it +was, no doubt, in that spirit, so far as it went +a stroke for freedom, that Densher, arriving betimes, +paced the platform before the train came in. Only, +after it had come and he had presented himself at the +door of Sir Luke's compartment with everything that +followed—only, as the situation developed, the sense +of an anti-climax to so many intensities deprived his +apprehensions and hesitations even of the scant dignity +they might claim. He could scarce have said if the +visitor's manner less showed the remembrance that +might have suggested expectation, or made shorter +work of surprise in presence of the fact. +</p><p> +Sir Luke had clean forgotten—so Densher read—the +rather remarkable young man he had formerly +gone about with, though he picked him up again, on +the spot, with one large quiet look. The young man +felt himself so picked, and the thing immediately +affected him as the proof of a splendid economy. +Opposed to all the waste with which he was now connected +the exhibition was of a nature quite nobly +to admonish him. The eminent pilgrim, in the train, +all the way, had used the hours as he needed, thinking +not a moment in advance of what finally awaited +him. An exquisite case awaited him—of which, +in this queer way, the remarkable young man was +an outlying part; but the single motion of his face, +the motion into which Densher, from the platform, +lightly stirred its stillness, was his first renewed cognition. +If, however, he had suppressed the matter +by leaving Victoria he would at once suppress now, +in turn, whatever else suited. The perception of this +became as a symbol of the whole pitch, so far as +one might one's self be concerned, of his visit. One +saw, our friend further meditated, everything that, in +contact, he appeared to accept—if only, for much, +not to trouble to sink it: what one missed was the +inward use he made of it. Densher began wondering, +at the great water-steps outside, what use he would +make of the anomaly of their having there to separate. +Eugenio had been on the platform, in the respectful +rear, and the gondola from the palace, under his +direction, bestirred itself, with its attaching mixture +of alacrity and dignity, on their coming out of the station +together. Densher didn't at all mind now that, +he himself of necessity refusing a seat on the deep +black cushions beside the guest of the palace, he had +Milly's three emissaries for spectators; and this susceptibility, +he also knew, it was something to have +left behind. All he did was to smile down vaguely +from the steps—they could see him, the donkeys, as +shut out as they would. "I don't," he said with a sad +headshake, "go there now." +</p><p> +"Oh!" Sir Luke Strett returned, and made no +more of it; so that the thing was splendid, Densher +fairly thought, as an inscrutability quite inevitable +and unconscious. His friend appeared not even to +make of it that he supposed it might be for respect +to the crisis. He didn't moreover afterwards make +much more of anything—after the classic craft, that +is, obeying in the main Pasquale's inimitable stroke +from the poop, had performed the manoeuvre by +which it presented, receding, a back, so to speak, +rendered positively graceful by the high black hump +of its <i>felze</i>. Densher watched the gondola out of sight—he +heard Pasquale's cry, borne to him across the +water, for the sharp firm swerve into a side-canal, a +short cut to the palace. He had no gondola of his +own; it was his habit never to take one; and he humbly—as +in Venice it <i>is</i> humble—walked away, +though not without having for some time longer +stood as if fixed where the guest of the palace had left +him. It was strange enough, but he found himself +as never yet, and as he couldn't have reckoned, in +presence of the truth that was the truest about Milly. +He couldn't have reckoned on the force of the difference +instantly made—for it was all in the air as he +heard Pasquale's cry and saw the boat disappear—by +the mere visibility, on the spot, of the personage +summoned to her aid. He hadn't only never been +near the facts of her condition—which counted so +as a blessing for him; he hadn't only, with all the +world, hovered outside an impenetrable ring fence, +within which there reigned a kind of expensive vagueness +made up of smiles and silences and beautiful +fictions and priceless arrangements, all strained to +breaking; but he had also, with every one else, as he +now felt, actively fostered suppressions which were in +the direct interest of every one's good manner, every +one's pity, every one's really quite generous ideal. +It was a conspiracy of silence, as the <i>cliché</i> went, to +which no one had made an exception, the great smudge +of mortality across the picture, the shadow of pain +and horror, finding in no quarter a surface of spirit +or of speech that consented to reflect it. "The mere +aesthetic instinct of mankind—!" our young man had +more than once, in the connexion, said to himself; +letting the rest of the proposition drop, but touching +again thus sufficiently on the outrage even to taste involved +in one's having to <i>see</i>. So then it had been—a +general conscious fool's paradise, from which the +specified had been chased like a dangerous animal. +What therefore had at present befallen was that the +specified, standing all the while at the gate, had now +crossed the threshold as in Sir Luke Strett's person +and quite on such a scale as to fill out the whole precinct. +Densher's nerves, absolutely his heart-beats +too, had measured the change before he on this occasion +moved away. +</p><p> +The facts of physical suffering, of incurable pain, +of the chance grimly narrowed, had been made, at +a stroke, intense, and this was to be the way he was +now to feel them. The clearance of the air, in short, +making vision not only possible but inevitable, the +one thing left to be thankful for was the breadth of +Sir Luke's shoulders, which, should one be able to +keep in line with them, might in some degree interpose. +It was, however, far from plain to Densher for +the first day or two that he was again to see his distinguished +friend at all. That he couldn't, on any +basis actually serving, return to the palace—this +was as solid to him, every whit, as the other feature +of his case, the fact of the publicity attaching to his +proscription through his not having taken himself off. +He had been seen often enough in the Leporelli gondola. +As, accordingly, he was not on any presumption +destined to meet Sir Luke about the town, where the +latter would have neither time nor taste to lounge, +nothing more would occur between them unless the +great man should surprisingly wait upon him. His +doing that, Densher further reflected, wouldn't even +simply depend on Mrs. Stringham's having decided +to—as they might say—turn him on. It would +depend as well—for there would be practically some +difference to her—on her actually attempting it; +and it would depend above all on what Sir Luke would +make of such an overture. Densher had for that +matter his own view of the amount, to say nothing of +the particular sort, of response it might expect from +him. He had his own view of the ability of such a +personage even to understand such an appeal. To +what extent could he be prepared, and what importance +in fine could he attach? Densher asked himself +these questions, in truth, to put his own position +at the worst. He should miss the great man completely +unless the great man should come to see him, and the +great man could only come to see him for a purpose +unsupposable. Therefore he wouldn't come at all, +and consequently there was nothing to hope. +</p><p> +It wasn't in the least that Densher invoked this +violence to all probability; but it pressed on him that +there were few possible diversions he could afford +now to miss. Nothing in his predicament was so odd +as that, incontestably afraid of himself, he was not +afraid of Sir Luke. He had an impression, which he +clung to, based on a previous taste of the visitor's +company, that <i>he</i> would somehow let him off. The +truth about Milly perched on his shoulders and +sounded in his tread, became by the fact of his presence +the name and the form, for the time, of everything +in the place; but it didn't, for the difference, +sit in his face, the face so squarely and easily turned +to Densher at the earlier season. His presence on +the first occasion, not as the result of a summons, but +as a friendly whim of his own, had had quite another +value; and though our young man could scarce regard +that value as recoverable he yet reached out in +imagination to a renewal of the old contact. He didn't +propose, as he privately and forcibly phrased the +matter, to be a hog; but there was something he after +all did want for himself. It was something—this +stuck to him—that Sir Luke would have had for him +if it hadn't been impossible. These were his worst +days, the two or three; those on which even the sense +of the tension at the palace didn't much help him +not to feel that his destiny made but light of him. He +had never been, as he judged it, so down. In mean +conditions, without books, without society, almost +without money, he had nothing to do but to wait. +His main support really was his original idea, which +didn't leave him, of waiting for the deepest depth his +predicament could sink him to. Fate would invent, +if he but gave it time, some refinement of the horrible. +It was just inventing meanwhile this suppression of +Sir Luke. When the third day came without a sign +he knew what to think. He had given Mrs. Stringham +during her call on him no such answer as would +have armed her faith, and the ultimatum she had described +as ready for him when <i>he</i> should be ready was +therefore—if on no other ground than her want of +this power to answer for him—not to be presented. +The presentation, heaven knew, was not what he desired. +</p><p> +That was not, either, we hasten to declare—as +Densher then soon enough saw—the idea with which +Sir Luke finally stood before him again. For stand +before him again he finally did; just when our friend +had gloomily embraced the belief that the limit of his +power to absent himself from London obligations +would have been reached. Four or five days, exclusive +of journeys, represented the largest supposable +sacrifice—to a head not crowned—on the part of +one of the highest medical lights in the world; so that +really when the personage in question, following up +a tinkle of the bell, solidly rose in the doorway, it was +to impose on Densher a vision that for the instant cut +like a knife. It spoke, the fact, and in a single dreadful +word, of the magnitude—he shrank from calling +it anything else—of Milly's case. The great man had +not gone then, and an immense surrender to her immense +need was so expressed in it that some effect, +some help, some hope, were flagrantly part of the +expression. It was for Densher, with his reaction +from disappointment, as if he were conscious of ten +things at once—the foremost being that just conceivably, +since Sir Luke <i>was</I> still there, she had been +saved. Close upon its heels, however, and quite as +sharply, came the sense that the crisis—plainly even +now to be prolonged for him—was to have none of +that sound simplicity. Not only had his visitor not +dropped in to gossip about Milly, he hadn't dropped +in to mention her at all; he had dropped in fairly to +show that during the brief remainder of his stay, the +end of which was now in sight, as little as possible of +that was to be looked for. The demonstration, such +as it was, was in the key of their previous acquaintance, +and it was their previous acquaintance that had +made him come. He was not to stop longer than the +Saturday next at hand, but there were things of interest +he should like to see again meanwhile. It was for +these things of interest, for Venice and the opportunity +of Venice, for a prowl or two, as he called it, +and a turn about, that he had looked his young man +up—producing on the latter's part, as soon as the +case had, with the lapse of a further twenty-four +hours, so defined itself, the most incongruous, yet +most beneficent revulsion. Nothing could in fact +have been more monstrous on the surface—and +Densher was well aware of it—than the relief he +found during this short period in the tacit drop of +all reference to the palace, in neither hearing news +nor asking for it. That was what had come out for +him, on his visitor's entrance, even in the very seconds +of suspense that were connecting the fact also +directly and intensely with Milly's state. He had +come to say he had saved her—he had come, as from +Mrs. Stringham, to say how she might <i>be</i> saved—he +had come, in spite of Mrs. Stringham, to say she +was lost: the distinct throbs of hope, of fear, simultaneous +for all their distinctness, merged their identity +in a bound of the heart just as immediate and +which remained after they had passed. It simply +did wonders for him—this was the truth—that Sir +Luke was, as he would have said, quiet. +</p><p> +The result of it was the oddest consciousness as of +a blest calm after a storm. He had been trying for +weeks, as we know, to keep superlatively still, and +trying it largely in solitude and silence; but he looked +back on it now as on the heat of fever. The real, the +right stillness was this particular form of society. +They walked together and they talked, looked up +pictures again and recovered impressions—Sir +Luke knew just what he wanted; haunted a little the +dealers in old wares; sat down at Florian's for rest and +mild drinks; blessed above all the grand weather, a +bath of warm air, a pageant of autumn light. Once +or twice while they rested the great man closed his +eyes—keeping them so for some minutes while his +companion, the more easily watching his face for it, +made private reflexions on the subject of lost sleep. +He had been up at night with her—he in person, for +hours; but this was all he showed of it and was apparently +to remain his nearest approach to an allusion. +The extraordinary thing was that Densher could +take it in perfectly as evidence, could turn cold at the +image looking out of it; and yet that he could at +the same time not intermit a throb of his response to +accepted liberation. The liberation was an experience +that held its own, and he continued to know why, in +spite of his deserts, in spite of his folly, in spite of +everything, he had so fondly hoped for it. He had +hoped for it, had sat in his room there waiting for it, +because he had thus divined in it, should it come, +some power to let him off. He was <i>being</i> let off; dealt +with in the only way that didn't aggravate his responsibility. +The beauty was also that this wasn't +on system or on any basis of intimate knowledge; it +was just by being a man of the world and by knowing +life, by feeling the real, that Sir Luke did him good. +There had been in all the case too many women. A +man's sense of it, another man's, changed the air; and +he wondered what man, had he chosen, would have +been more to his purpose than this one. He was large +and easy—that was the benediction; he knew what +mattered and what didn't; he distinguished between +the essence and the shell, the just grounds and the +unjust for fussing. One was thus—if one were concerned +with him or exposed to him at all—in his +hands for whatever he should do, and not much less +affected by his mercy than one might have been by +his rigour. The grand thing—it did come to that—was +the way he carried off, as one might fairly +call it, the business of making odd things natural. +Nothing, if they hadn't taken it so, could have exceeded +the unexplained oddity, between them, of +Densher's now complete detachment from the poor +ladies at the palace; nothing could have exceeded +the no less marked anomaly of the great man's own +abstentions of speech. He made, as he had done +when they met at the station, nothing whatever of +anything; and the effect of it, Densher would have +said, was a relation with him quite resembling that of +doctor and patient. One took the cue from him as +one might have taken a dose—except that the cue +was pleasant in the taking. +</p><p> +That was why one could leave it to his tacit discretion, +why for the three or four days Densher again +and again did so leave it; merely wondering a little, at +the most, on the eve of Saturday, the announced term +of the episode. Waiting once more on this latter occasion, +the Saturday morning, for Sir Luke's reappearance +at the station, our friend had to recognise the +drop of his own borrowed ease, the result, naturally +enough, of the prospect of losing a support. The difficulty +was that, on such lines as had served them, the +support was Sir Luke's personal presence. Would he +go without leaving some substitute for that?—and +without breaking, either, his silence in respect to his +errand? Densher was in still deeper ignorance than at +the hour of his call, and what was truly prodigious at +so supreme a moment was that—as had immediately +to appear—no gleam of light on what he had been +living with for a week found its way out of him. What +he had been doing was proof of a huge interest as well +as of a huge fee; yet when the Leporelli gondola again, +and somewhat tardily, approached, his companion, +watching from the water-steps, studied his fine closed +face as much as ever in vain. It was like a lesson, from +the highest authority, on the subject of the relevant, so +that its blankness affected Densher of a sudden almost +as a cruelty, feeling it quite awfully compatible, +as he did, with Milly's having ceased to exist. And +the suspense continued after they had passed together, +as time was short, directly into the station, where +Eugenio, in the field early, was mounting guard over +the compartment he had secured. The strain, though +probably lasting, at the carriage-door, but a couple +of minutes, prolonged itself so for our poor gentleman's +nerves that he involuntarily directed a long +look at Eugenio, who met it, however, as only Eugenio +could. Sir Luke's attention was given for the +time to the right bestowal of his numerous effects, +about which he was particular, and Densher fairly +found himself, so far as silence could go, questioning +the representative of the palace. It didn't humiliate +him now; it didn't humiliate him even to feel that +that personage exactly knew how little he satisfied +him. Eugenio resembled to that extent Sir Luke—to +the extent of the extraordinary things with which +his facial habit was compatible. By the time, however, +that Densher had taken from it all its possessor +intended Sir Luke was free and with a hand out for +farewell. He offered the hand at first without speech; +only on meeting his eyes could our young man see that +they had never yet so completely looked at him. It +was never, with Sir Luke, that they looked harder at +one time than at another; but they looked longer, and +this, even a shade of it, might mean on his part everything. +It meant, Densher for ten seconds believed, +that Milly Theale was dead; so that the word at last +spoken made him start. +</p><p> +"I shall come back." +</p><p> +"Then she's better?" +</p><p> +"I shall come back within the month," Sir Luke +repeated without heeding the question. He had +dropped Densher's hand, but he held him otherwise +still. "I bring you a message from Miss +Theale," he said as if they hadn't spoken of her. +"I'm commissioned to ask you from her to go and +see her." +</p><p> +Densher's rebound from his supposition had a +violence that his stare betrayed. "She asks me?" +</p><p> +Sir Luke had got into the carriage, the door of which +the guard had closed; but he spoke again as he stood +at the window, bending a little but not leaning out. +"She told me she'd like it, and I promised that, as +I expected to find you here, I'd let you know." +</p><p> +Densher, on the platform, took it from him, but +what he took brought the blood into his face quite as +what he had had to take from Mrs. Stringham. And +he was also bewildered. "Then she can receive—?" +</p><p> +"She can receive you." +</p><p> +"And you're coming back—?" +</p><p> +"Oh because I must. She's not to move. She's to +stay. I come to her." +</p><p> +"I see, I see," said Densher, who indeed did see—saw +the sense of his friend's words and saw beyond it +as well. What Mrs. Stringham had announced, and +what he had yet expected not to have to face, <i>had</i> +then come. Sir Luke had kept it for the last, but +there it was, and the colourless compact form it was +now taking—the tone of one man of the world to another, +who, after what had happened, would understand—was +but the characteristic manner of his appeal. +Densher was to understand remarkably much; +and the great thing certainly was to show that he +did. "I'm particularly obliged, I'll go to-day." He +brought that out, but in his pause, while they continued +to look at each other, the train had slowly +creaked into motion. There was time but for one +more word, and the young man chose it, out of twenty, +with intense concentration. "Then she's better?" +</p><p> +Sir Luke's face was wonderful. "Yes, she's better." +And he kept it at the window while the train +receded, holding him with it still. It was to be his +nearest approach to the utter reference they had +hitherto so successfully avoided. If it stood for everything; +never had a face had to stand for more. So +Densher, held after the train had gone, sharply reflected; +so he reflected, asking himself into what abyss +it pushed him, even while conscious of retreating +under the maintained observation of Eugenio. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">BOOK TENTH</h2> +<br> +<h2 align="center">I</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +"Then it has been—what do you say? a whole +fortnight?—without your making a sign?" +</p><p> +Kate put that to him distinctly, in the December +dusk of Lancaster Gate and on the matter of the time +he had been back; but he saw with it straightway that +she was as admirably true as ever to her instinct—which +was a system as well—of not admitting the +possibility between them of small resentments, of +trifles to trip up their general trust. That by itself, the +renewed beauty of it, would at this fresh sight of her +have stirred him to his depths if something else, something +no less vivid but quite separate, hadn't stirred +him still more. It was in seeing her that he felt what +their interruption had been, and that they met across +it even as persons whose adventures, on either side, in +time and space, of the nature of perils and exiles, had +had a peculiar strangeness. He wondered if he were +as different for her as she herself had immediately +appeared: which was but his way indeed of taking in, +with his thrill, that—even going by the mere first +look—she had never been so handsome. That fact +bloomed for him, in the firelight and lamplight that +glowed their welcome through the London fog, as the +flower of her difference; just as her difference itself—part +of which was her striking him as older in a degree +for which no mere couple of months could account—was +the fruit of their intimate relation. If +she was different it was because they had chosen together +that she should be, and she might now, as a +proof of their wisdom, their success, of the reality of +what had happened—of what in fact, for the spirit +of each, was still happening—been showing it to him +for pride. His having returned and yet kept, for numbered +days, so still, had been, he was quite aware, the +first point he should have to tackle; with which consciousness +indeed he had made a clean breast of it in +finally addressing Mrs. Lowder a note that had led to +his present visit. He had written to Aunt Maud as the +finer way; and it would doubtless have been to be +noted that he needed no effort not to write to Kate. +Venice was three weeks behind him—he had come +up slowly; but it was still as if even in London he must +conform to her law. That was exactly how he was +able, with his faith in her steadiness, to appeal to her +feeling for the situation and explain his stretched +delicacy. He had come to tell her everything, so far +as occasion would serve them; and if nothing was +more distinct than that his slow journey, his waits, his +delay to reopen communication had kept pace with +this resolve, so the inconsequence was doubtless at +bottom but one of the elements of intensity. He was +gathering everything up, everything he should tell +her. That took time, and the proof was that, as he +felt on the spot, he couldn't have brought it all with +him before this afternoon. He <i>had</i> brought it, to the +last syllable, and, out of the quantity it wouldn't be +hard—as he in fact found—to produce, for Kate's +understanding, his first reason. +</p><p> +"A fortnight, yes—it was a fortnight Friday; but +I've only been keeping in, you see, with our wonderful +system." He was so easily justified as that this +of itself plainly enough prevented her saying she +didn't see. Their wonderful system was accordingly +still vivid for her; and such a gage of its equal vividness +for himself was precisely what she must have +asked. He hadn't even to dot his i's beyond the +remark that on the very face of it, she would remember, +their wonderful system attached no premium to +rapidities of transition. "I couldn't quite—don't +you know?—take my rebound with a rush; and I +suppose I've been instinctively hanging off to minimise, +for you as well as for myself, the appearances +of rushing. There's a sort of fitness. But I knew +you'd understand." It was presently as if she really +understood so well that she almost appealed from his +insistence—yet looking at him too, he was not unconscious, +as if this mastery of fitnesses was a strong +sign for her of what she had done to him. He might +have struck her as expert for contingencies in the very +degree of her having in Venice struck <i>him</i> as expert. +He smiled over his plea for a renewal with stages and +steps, a thing shaded, as they might say, and graduated; +though—finely as she must respond—she +met the smile but as she had met his entrance five +minutes before. Her soft gravity at that moment—which +was yet not solemnity, but the look of a consciousness +charged with life to the brim and wishing +not to overflow—had not qualified her welcome; +what had done this being much more the presence in +the room, for a couple of minutes, of the footman +who had introduced him and who had been interrupted +in preparing the tea-table. +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder's reply to Densher's note had been to +appoint the tea-hour, five o'clock on Sunday, for his +seeing them. Kate had thereafter wired him, without +a signature, "Come on Sunday <i>before</i> tea—about a +quarter of an hour, which will help us"; and he had +arrived therefore scrupulously at twenty minutes to +five. Kate was alone in the room and hadn't delayed +to tell him that Aunt Maud, as she had happily +gathered, was to be, for the interval—not long but +precious—engaged with an old servant, retired and +pensioned, who had been paying her a visit and who +was within the hour to depart again for the suburbs. +They were to have the scrap of time, after the withdrawal +of the footman, to themselves, and there was +a moment when, in spite of their wonderful system, in +spite of the proscription of rushes and the propriety +of shades, it proclaimed itself indeed precious. And +all without prejudice—that was what kept it noble—to +Kate's high sobriety and her beautiful self-command. +If he had his discretion she had her perfect +manner, which was <i>her</i> decorum. Mrs. Stringham, he +had, to finish with the question of his delay, furthermore +observed, Mrs. Stringham would have written +to Mrs. Lowder of his having quitted the place; so +that it wasn't as if he were hoping to cheat them. +They'd know he was no longer there. +</p><p> +"Yes, we've known it." +</p><p> +"And you continue to hear?" +</p><p> +"From Mrs. Stringham? Certainly. By which I +mean Aunt Maud does." +</p><p> +"Then you've recent news?" +</p><p> +Her face showed a wonder. "Up to within a day +or two I believe. But haven't <i>you?</i>" +</p><p> +"No—I've heard nothing." And it was now that +he felt how much he had to tell her. "I don't get +letters. But I've been sure Mrs. Lowder does." With +which he added: "Then of course you know." He +waited as if she would show what she knew; but she +only showed in silence the dawn of a surprise that she +couldn't control. There was nothing but for him to +ask what he wanted. "Is Miss Theale alive?" +</p><p> +Kate's look at this was large. "Don't you <i>know?</i>" +</p><p> +"How should I, my dear—in the absence of everything?" +And he himself stared as for light. "She's +dead?" Then as with her eyes on him she slowly +shook her head he uttered a strange "Not yet?" +</p><p> +It came out in Kate's face that there were several +questions on her lips, but the one she presently put +was: "Is it very terrible?" +</p><p> +"The manner of her so consciously and helplessly +dying?" He had to think a moment. "Well, yes—since +you ask me: very terrible to <i>me</i>—so far as, +before I came away, I had any sight of it. But I don't +think," he went on, "that—though I'll try—I <i>can</i> +quite tell you what it was, what it is, for me. That's +why I probably just sounded to you," he explained, +"as if I hoped it might be over." +</p><p> +She gave him her quietest attention, but he by this +time saw that, so far as telling her all was concerned, +she would be divided between the wish and the reluctance +to hear it; between the curiosity that, not +unnaturally, would consume her and the opposing +scruple of a respect for misfortune. The more she +studied him too—and he had never so felt her closely +attached to his face—the more the choice of an attitude +would become impossible to her. There would +simply be a feeling uppermost, and the feeling wouldn't +be eagerness. This perception grew in him fast, +and he even, with his imagination, had for a moment +the quick forecast of her possibly breaking out +at him, should he go too far, with a wonderful: +"What horrors are you telling me?" It would have +the sound—wouldn't it be open to him fairly to +bring that out himself?—of a repudiation, for pity +and almost for shame, of everything that in Venice had +passed between them. Not that she would confess to +any return upon herself; not that she would let compunction +or horror give her away; but it was in the air +for him—yes—that she wouldn't want details, that +she positively wouldn't take them, and that, if he +would generously understand it from her, she would +prefer to keep him down. Nothing, however, was +more definite for him than that at the same time he +must remain down but so far as it suited him. Something +rose strong within him against his not being free +with her. She had been free enough about it all, three +months before, with <i>him</i>. That was what she was at +present only in the sense of treating him handsomely. +"I can believe," she said with perfect consideration, +"how dreadful for you much of it must have +been." +</p><p> +He didn't however take this up; there were things +about which he wished first to be clear. "There's +no other possibility, by what you now know? I mean +for her life." And he had just to insist—she would +say as little as she could. "She <i>is</i> dying?" +</p><p> +"She's dying." +</p><p> +It was strange to him, in the matter of Milly, that +Lancaster Gate could make him any surer; yet what +in the world, in the matter of Milly, wasn't strange? +Nothing was so much so as his own behaviour—his +present as well as his past. He could but do as he +must. "Has Sir Luke Strett," he asked, "gone back +to her?" +</p><p> +"I believe he's there now." +</p><p> +"Then," said Densher, "it's the end." +</p><p> +She took it in silence for whatever he deemed it to +be; but she spoke otherwise after a minute. "You +won't know, unless you've perhaps seen him yourself, +that Aunt Maud has been to him." +</p><p> +"Oh!" Densher exclaimed, with nothing to add +to it. +</p><p> +"For real news," Kate herself after an instant +added. +</p><p> +"She hasn't thought Mrs. Stringham's real?" +</p><p> +"It's perhaps only I who haven't. It was on Aunt +Maud's trying again three days ago to see him that +she heard at his house of his having gone. He had +started I believe some days before." +</p><p> +"And won't then by this time be back?" +</p><p> +Kate shook her head. "She sent yesterday to +know." +</p><p> +"He won't leave her then"—Densher had turned +it over—"while she lives. He'll stay to the end. +He's magnificent." +</p><p> +"I think <i>she</i> is," said Kate. +</p><p> +It had made them again look at each other long; +and what it drew from him rather oddly was: "Oh +you don't know!" +</p><p> +"Well, she's after all my friend." +</p><p> +It was somehow, with her handsome demur, the +answer he had least expected of her; and it fanned +with its breath, for a brief instant, his old sense of +her variety. "I see. You would have been sure of +it. You <i>were</i> sure of it." +</p><p> +"Of course I was sure of it." +</p><p> +And a pause again, with this, fell upon them; which +Densher, however, presently broke. "If you don't +think Mrs. Stringham's news 'real' what do you think +of Lord Mark's?" +</p><p> +She didn't think anything. "Lord Mark's?" +</p><p> +"You haven't seen him?" +</p><p> +"Not since he saw her." +</p><p> +"You've known then of his seeing her?" +</p><p> +"Certainly. From Mrs. Stringham." +</p><p> +"And have you known," Densher went on, "the +rest?" +</p><p> +Kate wondered. "What rest?" +</p><p> +"Why everything. It was his visit that she couldn't +stand—it was what then took place that simply +killed her." +</p><p> +"Oh!" Kate seriously breathed. But she had +turned pale, and he saw that, whatever her degree of +ignorance of these connexions, it wasn't put on. +"Mrs. Stringham hasn't said <i>that</i>." +</p><p> +He observed none the less that she didn't ask what +had then taken place; and he went on with his contribution +to her knowledge. "The way it affected her was +that it made her give up. She has given up beyond +all power to care again, and that's why she's dying." +</p><p> +"Oh!" Kate once more slowly sighed, but with a +vagueness that made him pursue. +</p><p> +"One can see now that she was living by will—which +was very much what you originally told me of +her." +</p><p> +"I remember. That was it." +</p><p> +"Well then her will, at a given moment, broke +down, and the collapse was determined by that fellow's +dastardly stroke. He told her, the scoundrel, +that you and I are secretly engaged." +</p><p> +Kate gave a quick glare. "But he doesn't know +it!" +</p><p> +"That doesn't matter. <i>She</i> did by the time he had +left her. Besides," Densher added, "he does know +it. When," he continued, "did you last see him?" +</p><p> +But she was lost now in the picture before her. +"<i>That</i> was what made her worse?" +</p><p> +He watched her take it in—it so added to her +sombre beauty. Then he spoke as Mrs. Stringham +had spoken. "She turned her face to the wall." +</p><p> +"Poor Milly!" said Kate. +</p><p> +Slight as it was, her beauty somehow gave it style; +so that he continued consistently: "She learned it, you +see, too soon—since of course one's idea had been +that she might never even learn it at all. And she <i>had</i> +felt sure—through everything we had done—of +there not being between us, so far at least as you were +concerned, anything she need regard as a warning." +</p><p> +She took another moment for thought. "It wasn't +through anything <i>you</i> did—whatever that may have +been—that she gained her certainty. It was by the +conviction she got from me." +</p><p> +"Oh it's very handsome," Densher said, "for you +to take your share!" +</p><p> +"Do you suppose," Kate asked, "that I think of +denying it?" +</p><p> +Her look and her tone made him for the instant +regret his comment, which indeed had been the first +that rose to his lips as an effect absolutely of what +they would have called between them her straightness. +Her straightness, visibly, was all his own loyalty +could ask. Still, that was comparatively beside +the mark. "Of course I don't suppose anything +but that we're together in our recognitions, our responsibilities—whatever +we choose to call them. It +isn't a question for us of apportioning shares or distinguishing +invidiously among such impressions as +it was our idea to give." +</p><p> +"It wasn't <i>your</i> idea to give impressions," said Kate. +</p><p> +He met this with a smile that he himself felt, in its +strained character, as queer. "Don't go into that!" +</p><p> +It was perhaps not as going into it that she had +another idea—an idea born, she showed, of the +vision he had just evoked. "Wouldn't it have been +possible then to deny the truth of the information? +I mean of Lord Mark's." +</p><p> +Densher wondered. "Possible for whom?" +</p><p> +"Why for you." +</p><p> +"To tell her he lied?" +</p><p> +"To tell her he's mistaken." +</p><p> +Densher stared—he was stupefied; the "possible" +thus glanced at by Kate being exactly the alternative +he had had to face in Venice and to put utterly +away from him. Nothing was stranger than such a +difference in their view of it. "And to lie myself, you +mean, to do it? We <i>are</i>, my dear child," he said, "I +suppose, still engaged." +</p><p> +"Of course we're still engaged. But to save her +life—!" +</p><p> +He took in for a little the way she talked of it. Of +course, it was to be remembered, she had always +simplified, and it brought back his sense of the degree +in which, to her energy as compared with his +own, many things were easy; the very sense that so +often before had moved him to admiration. "Well, +if you must know—and I want you to be clear about +it—I didn't even seriously think of a denial to her +face. The question of it—<i>as</i> possibly saving her—was +put to me definitely enough; but to turn it +over was only to dismiss it. Besides," he added, "it +wouldn't have done any good." +</p><p> +"You mean she would have had no faith in your +correction?" She had spoken with a promptitude +that affected him of a sudden as almost glib; but he +himself paused with the overweight of all he meant, +and she meanwhile went on. "Did you try?" +</p><p> +"I hadn't even a chance." +</p><p> +Kate maintained her wonderful manner, the manner +of at once having it all before her and yet keeping +it all at its distance. "She wouldn't see you?" +</p><p> +"Not after your friend had been with her." +</p><p> +She hesitated. "Couldn't you write?" +</p><p> +It made him also think, but with a difference. +"She had turned her face to the wall." +</p><p> +This again for a moment hushed her, and they +were both too grave now for parenthetic pity. But +her interest came out for at least the minimum of +light. "She refused even to let you speak to her?" +</p><p> +"My dear girl," Densher returned, "she was +miserably, prohibitively ill." +</p><p> +"Well, that was what she had been before." +</p><p> +"And it didn't prevent? No," Densher admitted, +"it didn't; and I don't pretend that she's not +magnificent." +</p><p> +"She's prodigious," said Kate Croy. +</p><p> +He looked at her a moment. "So are you, my dear. +But that's how it is," he wound up; "and there we +are." +</p><p> +His idea had been in advance that she would perhaps +sound him much more deeply, asking him above +all two or three specific things. He had fairly fancied +her even wanting to know and trying to find out how +far, as the odious phrase was, he and Milly had gone, +and how near, by the same token, they had come. He +had asked himself if he were prepared to hear her do +that, and had had to take for answer that he was prepared +of course for everything. Wasn't he prepared +for her ascertaining if her two or three prophecies +had found time to be made true? He had fairly believed +himself ready to say whether or no the overture +on Milly's part promised according to the boldest of +them had taken place. But what was in fact blessedly +coming to him was that so far as such things were +concerned his readiness wouldn't be taxed. Kate's +pressure on the question of what had taken place +remained so admirably general that even her present +enquiry kept itself free of sharpness. "So then that +after Lord Mark's interference you never again +met?" +</p><p> +It was what he had been all the while coming to. +"No; we met once—so far as it could be called a +meeting. I had stayed—I didn't come away." +</p><p> +"That," said Kate, "was no more than decent." +</p><p> +"Precisely"—he felt himself wonderful; "and I +wanted to be no less. She sent for me, I went to her, +and that night I left Venice." +</p><p> +His companion waited. "Wouldn't <i>that</i> then have +been your chance?" +</p><p> +"To refute Lord Mark's story? No, not even if +before her there I had wanted to. What did it signify +either? She was dying." +</p><p> +"Well," Kate in a manner persisted, "why not +just <i>because</i> she was dying?" She had however +all her discretion. "But of course I know that seeing +her you could judge." +</p><p> +"Of course seeing her I could judge. And I did see +her! If I had denied you moreover," Densher said +with his eyes on her, "I'd have stuck to it." +</p><p> +She took for a moment the intention of his face. +"You mean that to convince her you'd have insisted +or somehow proved—?" +</p><p> +"I mean that to convince <i>you</i> I'd have insisted or +somehow proved—!" +</p><p> +Kate looked for her moment at a loss. "To convince +'me'?" +</p><p> +"I wouldn't have made my denial, in such conditions, +only to take it back afterwards." +</p><p> +With this quickly light came for her, and with it +also her colour flamed. "Oh you'd have broken with +me to make your denial a truth? You'd have 'chucked' +me"—she embraced it perfectly—"to save your +conscience?" +</p><p> +"I couldn't have done anything else," said Merton +Densher. "So you see how right I was not to +commit myself, and how little I could dream of it. +If it ever again appears to you that I <i>might</i> have done +so, remember what I say." +</p><p> +Kate again considered, but not with the effect at +once to which he pointed. "You've fallen in love +with her." +</p><p> +"Well then say so—with a dying woman. Why +need you mind and what does it matter?" +</p><p> +It came from him, the question, straight out of the +intensity of relation and the face-to-face necessity +into which, from the first, from his entering the room, +they had found themselves thrown; but it gave them +their most extraordinary moment. "Wait till she is +dead! Mrs. Stringham," Kate added, "is to telegraph." +After which, in a tone still different, "For +what then," she asked, "did Milly send for you?" +</p><p> +"It was what I tried to make out before I went. +I must tell you moreover that I had no doubt of its +really being to give me, as you say, a chance. She +believed, I suppose, that I <i>might</i> deny; and what, to +my own mind, was before me in going to her was the +certainty that she'd put me to my test. She wanted +from my own lips—so I saw it—the truth. But I +was with her for twenty minutes, and she never asked +me for it." +</p><p> +"She never wanted the truth"—Kate had a high +headshake. "She wanted <i>you</i>. She would have +taken from you what you could give her and been +glad of it, even if she had known it false. You might +have lied to her from pity, and she have seen you +and felt you lie, and yet—since it was all for tenderness—she +would have thanked you and blessed +you and clung to you but the more. For that was +your strength, my dear man—that she loves you +with passion." +</p><p> +"Oh my 'strength'!" Densher coldly murmured. +</p><p> +"Otherwise, since she had sent for you, what was +it to ask of you?" And then—quite without irony—as +he waited a moment to say: "Was it just once +more to look at you?" +</p><p> +"She had nothing to ask of me—nothing, that is, +but not to stay any longer. She did to that extent +want to see me. She had supposed at first—after +he had been with her—that I had seen the propriety +of taking myself off. Then since I hadn't—seeing +my propriety as I did in another way—she found, +days later, that I was still there. This," said Densher, +"affected her." +</p><p> +"Of course it affected her." +</p><p> +Again she struck him, for all her dignity, as glib. +"If it was somehow for <i>her</i> I was still staying, she +wished that to end, she wished me to know how little +there was need of it. And as a manner of farewell she +wished herself to tell me so." +</p><p> +"And she did tell you so?" +</p><p> +"Face-to-face, yes. Personally, as she desired." +</p><p> +"And as <i>you</i> of course did." +</p><p> +"No, Kate," he returned with all their mutual consideration; +"not as I did. I hadn't desired it in the +least." +</p><p> +"You only went to oblige her?" +</p><p> +"To oblige her. And of course also to oblige you." +</p><p> +"Oh for myself certainly I'm glad." +</p><p> +"'Glad'?"—he echoed vaguely the way it rang out. +</p><p> +"I mean you did quite the right thing. You did it +especially in having stayed. But that was all?" Kate +went on. "That you mustn't wait?" +</p><p> +"That was really all—and in perfect kindness." +</p><p> +"Ah kindness naturally: from the moment she +asked of you such a—well, such an effort. That you +mustn't wait—that was the point," Kate added—"to +see her die." +</p><p> +"That was the point, my dear," Densher said. +</p><p> +"And it took twenty minutes to make it?" +</p><p> +He thought a little. "I didn't time it to a second. +I paid her the visit—just like another." +</p><p> +"Like another person?" +</p><p> +"Like another visit." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Kate. Which had apparently the +effect of slightly arresting his speech—an arrest she +took advantage of to continue; making with it indeed +her nearest approach to an enquiry of the kind against +which he had braced himself. "Did she receive you—in +her condition—in her room?" +</p><p> +"Not she," said Merton Densher. "She received +me just as usual: in that glorious great <i>salone</i>, in the +dress she always wears, from her inveterate corner +of her sofa." And his face for the moment conveyed +the scene, just as hers equally embraced it. "Do you +remember what you originally said to me of her?" +</p><p> +"Ah I've said so many things." +</p><p> +"That she wouldn't smell of drugs, that she +wouldn't taste of medicine. Well, she didn't." +</p><p> +"So that it was really almost happy?" +</p><p> +It took him a long time to answer, occupied as he +partly was in feeling how nobody but Kate could +have invested such a question with the tone that was +perfectly right. She meanwhile, however, patiently +waited. "I don't think I can attempt to say now what +it was. Some day—perhaps. For it would be worth +it for us." +</p><p> +"Some day—certainly." She seemed to record +the promise. Yet she spoke again abruptly. "She'll +recover." +</p><p> +"Well," said Densher, "you'll see." +</p><p> +She had the air an instant of trying to. "Did she +show anything of her feeling? I mean," Kate explained, +"of her feeling of having been misled." +</p><p> +She didn't press hard, surely; but he had just +mentioned that he would have rather to glide. "She +showed nothing but her beauty and her strength." +</p><p> +"Then," his companion asked, "what's the use of +her strength?" +</p><p> +He seemed to look about for a use he could name; +but he had soon given it up. "She must die, my dear, +in her own extraordinary way." +</p><p> +"Naturally. But I don't see then what proof you +have that she was ever alienated." +</p><p> +"I have the proof that she refused for days and days +to see me." +</p><p> +"But she was ill." +</p><p> +"That hadn't prevented her—as you yourself a +moment ago said—during the previous time. If it +had been only illness it would have made no difference +with her." +</p><p> +"She would still have received you?" +</p><p> +"She would still have received me." +</p><p> +"Oh well," said Kate, "if you know—!" +</p><p> +"Of course I know. I know moreover as well from +Mrs. Stringham." +</p><p> +"And what does Mrs. Stringham know?" +</p><p> +"Everything." +</p><p> +She looked at him longer. "Everything?" +</p><p> +"Everything." +</p><p> +"Because you've told her?" +</p><p> +"Because she has seen for herself. I've told her +nothing. She's a person who does see." +</p><p> +Kate thought. "That's by her liking you too. +She as well is prodigious. You see what interest in a +man does. It does it all round. So you needn't be +afraid." +</p><p> +"I'm not afraid," said Densher. +</p><p> +Kate moved from her place then, looking at the +clock, which marked five. She gave her attention to +the tea-table, where Aunt Maud's huge silver kettle, +which had been exposed to its lamp and which she +had not soon enough noticed, was hissing too hard. +"Well, it's all most wonderful!" she exclaimed as she +rather too profusely—a sign her friend noticed—ladled +tea into the pot. He watched her a moment at +this occupation, coming nearer the table while she +put in the steaming water. "You'll have some?" +</p><p> +He hesitated. "Hadn't we better wait—?" +</p><p> +"For Aunt Maud?" She saw what he meant—the +deprecation, by their old law, of betrayals of the +intimate note. "Oh you needn't mind now. We've +done it!" +</p><p> +"Humbugged her?" +</p><p> +"Squared her. You've pleased her." +</p><p> +Densher mechanically accepted his tea. He was +thinking of something else, and his thought in a moment +came out. "What a brute then I must be!" +</p><p> +"A brute—?" +</p><p> +"To have pleased so many people." +</p><p> +"Ah," said Kate with a gleam of gaiety, "you've +done it to please <i>me</i>." But she was already, with her +gleam, reverting a little. "What I don't understand is—won't +you have any sugar?" +</p><p> +"Yes, please." +</p><p> +"What I don't understand," she went on when she +had helped him, "is what it was that had occurred to +bring her round again. If she gave you up for days +and days, what brought her back to you?" +</p><p> +She asked the question with her own cup in her +hand, but it found him ready enough in spite of his +sense of the ironic oddity of their going into it over the +tea-table. "It was Sir Luke Strett who brought her +back. His visit, his presence there did it." +</p><p> +"He brought her back then to life." +</p><p> +"Well, to what I saw." +</p><p> +"And by interceding for you?" +</p><p> +"I don't think he interceded. I don't indeed know +what he did." +</p><p> +Kate wondered. "Didn't he tell you?" +</p><p> +"I didn't ask him. I met him again, but we practically +didn't speak of her." +</p><p> +Kate stared. "Then how do you know?" +</p><p> +"I see. I feel. I was with him again as I had been +before—" +</p><p> +"Oh and you pleased him too? That was it?" +</p><p> +"He understood," said Densher. +</p><p> +"But understood what?" +</p><p> +He waited a moment. "That I had meant awfully +well." +</p><p> +"Ah, and made <i>her</i> understand? I see," she went +on as he said nothing. "But how did he convince +her?" +</p><p> +Densher put down his cup and turned away. "You +must ask Sir Luke." +</p><p> +He stood looking at the fire and there was a time +without sound. "The great thing," Kate then resumed, +"is that she's satisfied. Which," she continued, +looking across at him, "is what I've worked +for." +</p><p> +"Satisfied to die in the flower of her youth?" +</p><p> +"Well, at peace with you." +</p><p> +"Oh 'peace'!" he murmured with his eyes on the +fire. +</p><p> +"The peace of having loved." +</p><p> +He raised his eyes to her. "Is <i>that</i> peace?" +</p><p> +"Of having <i>been</i> loved," she went on. "That is. +Of having," she wound up, "realised her passion. She +wanted nothing more. She has had <i>all</i> she wanted." +</p><p> +Lucid and always grave, she gave this out with a +beautiful authority that he could for the time meet +with no words. He could only again look at her, +though with the sense in so doing that he made her +more than he intended take his silence for assent. +Quite indeed as if she did so take it she quitted the +table and came to the fire. "You may think it hideous +that I should now, that I should <i>yet</i>"—she made a +point of the word—"pretend to draw conclusions. +But we've not failed." +</p><p> +"Oh!" he only again murmured. +</p><p> +She was once more close to him, close as she had +been the day she came to him in Venice, the quickly +returning memory of which intensified and enriched +the fact. He could practically deny in such conditions +nothing that she said, and what she said was, with +it, visibly, a fruit of that knowledge. "We've succeeded." +She spoke with her eyes deep in his own. +"She won't have loved you for nothing." It made +him wince, but she insisted. "And you won't have +loved <i>me</i>." +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">II</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +He was to remain for several days under the deep +impression of this inclusive passage, so luckily prolonged +from moment to moment, but interrupted at +its climax, as may be said, by the entrance of Aunt +Maud, who found them standing together near the +fire. The bearings of the colloquy, however, sharp +as they were, were less sharp to his intelligence, +strangely enough, than those of a talk with Mrs. +Lowder alone for which she soon gave him—or for +which perhaps rather Kate gave him—full occasion. +What had happened on her at last joining them was +to conduce, he could immediately see, to her desiring +to have him to herself. Kate and he, no doubt, at the +opening of the door, had fallen apart with a certain +suddenness, so that she had turned her hard fine eyes +from one to the other; but the effect of this lost itself, +to his mind, the next minute, in the effect of his companion's +rare alertness. She instantly spoke to her +aunt of what had first been uppermost for herself, +inviting her thereby intimately to join them, and doing +it the more happily also, no doubt, because the +fact she resentfully named gave her ample support. +"Had you quite understood, my dear, that it's full +three weeks—?" And she effaced herself as if to +leave Mrs. Lowder to deal from her own point of view +with this extravagance. Densher of course straightway +noted that his cue for the protection of Kate was +to make, no less, all of it he could; and their tracks, +as he might have said, were fairly covered by the time +their hostess had taken afresh, on his renewed admission, +the measure of his scant eagerness. Kate +had moved away as if no great showing were needed +for her personal situation to be seen as delicate. She +had been entertaining their visitor on her aunt's behalf—a +visitor she had been at one time suspected +of favouring too much and who had now come back +to them as the stricken suitor of another person. It +wasn't that the fate of the other person, her exquisite +friend, didn't, in its tragic turn, also concern herself: +it was only that her acceptance of Mr. Densher as a +source of information could scarcely help having an +awkwardness. She invented the awkwardness under +Densher's eyes, and he marvelled on his side at the +instant creation. It served her as the fine cloud that +hangs about a goddess in an epic, and the young man +was but vaguely to know at what point of the rest of +his visit she had, for consideration, melted into it and +out of sight. +</p><p> +He was taken up promptly with another matter—the +truth of the remarkable difference, neither +more nor less, that the events of Venice had introduced +into his relation with Aunt Maud and that these +weeks of their separation had caused quite richly to +ripen for him. She had not sat down to her tea-table +before he felt himself on terms with her that were +absolutely new, nor could she press on him a second +cup without her seeming herself, and quite wittingly, +so to define and establish them. She regretted, but +she quite understood, that what was taking place had +obliged him to hang off; they had—after hearing +of him from poor Susan as gone—been hoping for +an early sight of him; they would have been interested, +naturally, in his arriving straight from the scene. Yet +she needed no reminder that the scene precisely—by +which she meant the tragedy that had so detained and +absorbed him, the memory, the shadow, the sorrow +of it—was what marked him for unsociability. She +thus presented him to himself, as it were, in the guise +in which she had now adopted him, and it was the +element of truth in the character that he found himself, +for his own part, adopting. She treated him as +blighted and ravaged, as frustrate and already bereft; +and for him to feel that this opened for him a new +chapter of frankness with her he scarce had also to +perceive how it smoothed his approaches to Kate. It +made the latter accessible as she hadn't yet begun to +be; it set up for him at Lancaster Gate an association +positively hostile to any other legend. It was quickly +vivid to him that, were he minded, he could "work" +this association: he had but to use the house freely for +his prescribed attitude and he need hardly ever be +out of it. Stranger than anything moreover was to be +the way that by the end of a week he stood convicted +to his own sense of a surrender to Mrs. Lowder's +view. He had somehow met it at a point that had +brought him on—brought him on a distance that he +couldn't again retrace. He had private hours of +wondering what had become of his sincerity; he had +others of simply reflecting that he had it all in use. +His only want of candour was Aunt Maud's wealth +of sentiment. She was hugely sentimental, and the +worst he did was to take it from her. He wasn't so +himself—everything was too real; but it was none +the less not false that he <i>had</i> been through a mill. +</p><p> +It was in particular not false for instance that when +she had said to him, on the Sunday, almost cosily, +from her sofa behind the tea, "I want you not to +doubt, you poor dear, that I'm <i>with</i> you to the end!" +his meeting her halfway had been the only course +open to him. She was with him to the end—or she +might be—in a way Kate wasn't; and even if it literally +made her society meanwhile more soothing he +must just brush away the question of why it shouldn't. +Was he professing to her in any degree the possession +of an aftersense that wasn't real? How in the world +<i>could</i> he, when his aftersense, day by day, was his +greatest reality? Such only was at bottom what there +was between them, and two or three times over it +made the hour pass. These were occasions—two +and a scrap—on which he had come and gone without +mention of Kate. Now that almost as never yet +he had licence to ask for her, the queer turn of their +affair made it a false note. It was another queer turn +that when he talked with Aunt Maud about Milly +nothing else seemed to come up. He called upon her +almost avowedly for that purpose, and it was the +queerest turn of all that the state of his nerves should +require it. He liked her better; he was really behaving, +he had occasion to say to himself, as if he liked +her best. The thing was absolutely that she met <i>him</i> +halfway. Nothing could have been broader than her +vision, than her loquacity, than her sympathy. It +appeared to gratify, to satisfy her to see him as he +was; that too had its effect. It was all of course the +last thing that could have seemed on the cards, a +change by which he was completely <i>free</i> with this +lady; and it wouldn't indeed have come about if—for +another monstrosity—he hadn't ceased to be +free with Kate. Thus it was that on the third time in +especial of being alone with her he found himself +uttering to the elder woman what had been impossible +of utterance to the younger. Mrs. Lowder +gave him in fact, on the ground of what he must keep +from her, but one uneasy moment. That was when, +on the first Sunday, after Kate had suppressed herself, +she referred to her regret that he mightn't have +stayed to the end. He found his reason difficult to +give her, but she came after all to his help. +</p><p> +"You simply couldn't stand it?" +</p><p> +"I simply couldn't stand it. Besides you see—!" +But he paused. +</p><p> +"Besides what?" He had been going to say more—then +he saw dangers; luckily however she had again +assisted him. "Besides—oh I know!—men haven't, +in many relations, the courage of women." +</p><p> +"They haven't the courage of women." +</p><p> +"Kate or I would have stayed," she declared—"if +we hadn't come away for the special reason that +you so frankly appreciated." +</p><p> +Densher had said nothing about his appreciation: +hadn't his behaviour since the hour itself sufficiently +shown it? But he presently said—he couldn't help +going so far: "I don't doubt, certainly, that Miss +Croy would have stayed." And he saw again into the +bargain what a marvel was Susan Shepherd. She did +nothing but protect him—she had done nothing but +keep it up. In copious communication with the friend +of her youth she had yet, it was plain, favoured this +lady with nothing that compromised him. Milly's +act of renouncement she had described but as a change +for the worse; she had mentioned Lord Mark's descent, +as even without her it might be known, so that +she mustn't appear to conceal it; but she had suppressed +explanations and connexions, and indeed, +for all he knew, blessed Puritan soul, had invented +commendable fictions. Thus it was absolutely that +he was at his ease. Thus it was that, shaking for ever, +in the unrest that didn't drop, his crossed leg, he +leaned back in deep yellow satin chairs and took such +comfort as came. She asked, it was true, Aunt Maud, +questions that Kate hadn't; but this was just the +difference, that from her he positively liked them. +He had taken with himself on leaving Venice the +resolution to regard Milly as already dead to him—that +being for his spirit the only thinkable way to +pass the time of waiting. He had left her because it +was what suited her, and it wasn't for him to go, as +they said in America, behind this; which imposed on +him but the sharper need to arrange himself with his +interval. Suspense was the ugliest ache to him, and +he would have nothing to do with it; the last thing +he wished was to be unconscious of her—what he +wished to ignore was her own consciousness, tortured, +for all he knew, crucified by its pain. Knowingly to +hang about in London while the pain went on—what +would that do but make his days impossible? +His scheme was accordingly to convince himself—and +by some art about which he was vague—that the +sense of waiting had passed. "What in fact," he +restlessly reflected, "have I any further to do with +it? Let me assume the thing actually over—as it +at any moment may be—and I become good again +for something at least to somebody. I'm good, as it is, +for nothing to anybody, least of all to <i>her</i>." He consequently +tried, so far as shutting his eyes and stalking +grimly about was a trial; but his plan was carried +out, it may well be guessed, neither with marked success +nor with marked consistency. The days, whether +lapsing or lingering, were a stiff reality; the suppression +of anxiety was a thin idea; the taste of life +itself was the taste of suspense. That he <i>was</i> waiting +was in short at the bottom of everything; and it required +no great sifting presently to feel that if he took +so much more, as he called it, to Mrs. Lowder this +was just for that reason. +</p><p> +She helped him to hold out, all the while that she +was subtle enough—and he could see her divine it +as what he wanted—not to insist on the actuality of +their tension. His nearest approach to success was +thus in being good for something to Aunt Maud, in +default of any one better; her company eased his +nerves even while they pretended together that they +had seen their tragedy out. They spoke of the dying +girl in the past tense; they said no worse of her than +that she had <i>been</i> stupendous. On the other hand, +however—and this was what wasn't for Densher +pure peace—they insisted enough that stupendous +was the word. It was the thing, this recognition, that +kept him most quiet; he came to it with her repeatedly; +talking about it against time and, in particular, we +have noted, speaking of his supreme personal impression +as he hadn't spoken to Kate. It was almost +as if she herself enjoyed the perfection of the pathos; +she sat there before the scene, as he couldn't help +giving it out to her, very much as a stout citizen's wife +might have sat, during a play that made people cry, +in the pit or the family-circle. What most deeply +stirred her was the way the poor girl must have wanted +to live. +</p><p> +"Ah yes indeed—she did, she did: why in pity +shouldn't she, with everything to fill her world? The +mere <i>money</i> of her, the darling, if it isn't too disgusting +at such a time to mention that—!" +</p><p> +Aunt Maud mentioned it—and Densher quite +understood—but as fairly giving poetry to the life +Milly clung to: a view of the "might have been" +before which the good lady was hushed anew to +tears. She had had her own vision of these possibilities, +and her own social use for them, and since +Milly's spirit had been after all so at one with her +about them, what was the cruelty of the event but a +cruelty, of a sort, to herself? That came out when +he named, as <i>the</i> horrible thing to know, the fact of +their young friend's unapproachable terror of the +end, keep it down though she would; coming out +therefore often, since in so naming it he found the +strangest of reliefs. He allowed it all its vividness, +as if on the principle of his not at least spiritually +shirking. Milly had held with passion to her dream +of a future, and she was separated from it, not shrieking +indeed, but grimly, awfully silent, as one might +imagine some noble young victim of the scaffold, in +the French Revolution, separated at the prison-door +from some object clutched for resistance. Densher, +in a cold moment, so pictured the case for Mrs. Lowder, +but no moment cold enough had yet come to +make him so picture it to Kate. And it was the front +so presented that had been, in Milly, heroic; presented +with the highest heroism, Aunt Maud by this +time knew, on the occasion of his taking leave of her. +He had let her know, absolutely for the girl's glory, +how he had been received on that occasion: with +a positive effect—since she was indeed so perfectly +the princess that Mrs. Stringham always called her—of +princely state. +</p><p> +Before the fire in the great room that was all arabesques +and cherubs, all gaiety and gilt, and that was +warm at that hour too with a wealth of autumn sun, +the state in question had been maintained and the +situation—well, Densher said for the convenience of +exquisite London gossip, sublime. The gossip—for +it came to as much at Lancaster Gate—wasn't the +less exquisite for his use of the silver veil, nor on +the other hand was the veil, so touched, too much +drawn aside. He himself for that matter took in the +scene again at moments as from the page of a book. +He saw a young man far off and in a relation inconceivable, +saw him hushed, passive, staying his breath, +but half understanding, yet dimly conscious of something +immense and holding himself painfully together +not to lose it. The young man at these moments so seen +was too distant and too strange for the right identity; +and yet, outside, afterwards, it was his own face Densher +had known. He had known then at the same time +what the young man had been conscious of, and he was +to measure after that, day by day, how little he had +lost. At present there with Mrs. Lowder he knew +he had gathered all—that passed between them +mutely as in the intervals of their associated gaze they +exchanged looks of intelligence. This was as far as +association could go, but it was far enough when +she knew the essence. The essence was that something +had happened to him too beautiful and too +sacred to describe. He had been, to his recovered +sense, forgiven, dedicated, blessed; but this he couldn't +coherently express. It would have required an +explanation—fatal to Mrs. Lowder's faith in him—of +the nature of Milly's wrong. So, as to the wonderful +scene, they just stood at the door. They had +the sense of the presence within—they felt the +charged stillness; after which, their association deepened +by it, they turned together away. +</p><p> +That itself indeed, for our restless friend, became +by the end of a week the very principle of reaction: +so that he woke up one morning with such a sense +of having played a part as he needed self-respect +to gainsay. He hadn't in the least stated at Lancaster +Gate that, as a haunted man—a man haunted with +a memory—he was harmless; but the degree to +which Mrs. Lowder accepted, admired and explained +his new aspect laid upon him practically the weight +of a declaration. What he hadn't in the least stated +her own manner was perpetually stating; it was as +haunted and harmless that she was constantly putting +him down. There offered itself however to his +purpose such an element as plain honesty, and he had +embraced, by the time he dressed, his proper corrective. +They were on the edge of Christmas, but Christmas +this year was, as in the London of so many other +years, disconcertingly mild; the still air was soft, the +thick light was grey, the great town looked empty, +and in the Park, where the grass was green, where +the sheep browsed, where the birds multitudinously +twittered, the straight walks lent themselves to slowness +and the dim vistas to privacy. He held it fast +this morning till he had got out, his sacrifice to honour, +and then went with it to the nearest post-office +and fixed it fast in a telegram; thinking of it moreover +as a sacrifice only because he had, for reasons, +felt it as an effort. Its character of effort it would owe +to Kate's expected resistance, not less probable than +on the occasion of past appeals; which was precisely +why he—perhaps innocently—made his telegram +persuasive. It had, as a recall of tender hours, to be, +for the young woman at the counter, a trifle cryptic; +but there was a good deal of it in one way and another, +representing as it did a rich impulse and costing +him a couple of shillings. There was also a moment +later on, that day, when, in the Park, as he +measured watchfully one of their old alleys, he might +have been supposed by a cynical critic to be reckoning +his chance of getting his money back. He was +waiting—but he had waited of old; Lancaster Gate +as a danger was practically at hand—but she had +risked that danger before. Besides it was smaller now, +with the queer turn of their affair; in spite of which +indeed he was graver as he lingered and looked out. +</p><p> +Kate came at last by the way he had thought least +likely, came as if she had started from the Marble +Arch; but her advent was response—that was the +great matter; response marked in her face and agreeable +to him, even after Aunt Maud's responses, +as nothing had been since his return to London. She +had not, it was true, answered his wire, and he had +begun to fear, as she was late, that with the instinct +of what he might be again intending to press upon +her she had decided—though not with ease—to deprive +him of his chance. He would have of course, +she knew, other chances, but she perhaps saw the +present as offering her special danger. This, in fact, +Densher could himself feel, was exactly why he had +so prepared it, and he had rejoiced, even while he +waited, in all that the conditions had to say to him +of their simpler and better time. The shortest day +of the year though it might be, it was, in the same +place, by a whim of the weather, almost as much +to their purpose as the days of sunny afternoons +when they had taken their first trysts. This and +that tree, within sight, on the grass, stretched bare +boughs over the couple of chairs in which they had +sat of old and in which—for they really could sit +down again—they might recover the clearness of +their prime. It was to all intents however this very +reference that showed itself in Kate's face as, with +her swift motion, she came toward him. It helped +him, her swift motion, when it finally brought her +nearer; helped him, for that matter, at first, if only +by showing him afresh how terribly well she looked. +It had been all along, he certainly remembered, a +phenomenon of no rarity that he had felt her, at +particular moments, handsomer than ever before; +one of these for instance being still present to him +as her entrance, under her aunt's eyes, at Lancaster +Gate, the day of his dinner there after his return +from America; and another her aspect on the same +spot two Sundays ago—the light in which she struck +the eyes he had brought back from Venice. In the +course of a minute or two now he got, as he had got +it the other times, his apprehension of the special +stamp of the fortune of the moment. +</p><p> +Whatever it had been determined by as the different +hours recurred to him, it took on at present a +prompt connexion with an effect produced for him in +truth more than once during the past week, only now +much intensified. This effect he had already noted +and named: it was that of the attitude assumed by +his friend in the presence of the degree of response +on his part to Mrs. Lowder's welcome which she +couldn't possibly have failed to notice. She <i>had</i> +noticed it, and she had beautifully shown him so; +wearing in its honour the finest shade of studied serenity, +a shade almost of gaiety over the workings of +time. Everything of course was relative, with the +shadow they were living under; but her condonation +of the way in which he now, for confidence, distinguished +Aunt Maud had almost the note of cheer. +She had so by her own air consecrated the distinction, +invidious in respect to herself though it might be; and +nothing, really, more than this demonstration, could +have given him had he still wanted it the measure of +her superiority. It was doubtless for that matter this +superiority alone that on the winter noon gave smooth +decision to her step and charming courage to her +eyes—a courage that deepened in them when he had +presently got to what he did want. He had delayed +after she had joined him not much more than long +enough for him to say to her, drawing her hand into +his arm and turning off where they had turned of old, +that he wouldn't pretend he hadn't lately had moments +of not quite believing he should ever again be +so happy. She answered, passing over the reasons, +whatever they had been, of his doubt, that her own +belief was in high happiness for them if they would +only have patience; though nothing at the same time +could be dearer than his idea for their walk. It was +only make-believe of course, with what had taken +place for them, that they couldn't meet at home; she +spoke of their opportunities as suffering at no point. +He had at any rate soon let her know that he wished +the present one to suffer at none, and in a quiet spot, +beneath a great wintry tree, he let his entreaty come +sharp. +</p><p> +"We've played our dreadful game and we've lost. +We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our feeling <i>for</i> +ourselves and for each other, not to wait another day. +Our marriage will—fundamentally, somehow, don't +you see?—right everything that's wrong, and I +can't express to you my impatience. We've only to +announce it—and it takes off the weight." +</p><p> +"To 'announce' it?" Kate asked. She spoke as if +not understanding, though she had listened to him +without confusion. +</p><p> +"To accomplish it then—to-morrow if you will; +<i>do</i> it and announce it as done. That's the least part +of it—after it nothing will matter. We shall be so +right," he said, "that we shall be strong; we shall only +wonder at our past fear. It will seem an ugly madness. +It will seem a bad dream." +</p><p> +She looked at him without flinching—with the +look she had brought at his call; but he felt now the +strange chill of her brightness. "My dear man, what +has happened to you?" +</p><p> +"Well, that I can bear it no longer. <i>That's</i> simply +what has happened. Something has snapped, has +broken in me, and here I am. It's <i>as</i> I am that you +must have me." +</p><p> +He saw her try for a time to appear to consider it; +but he saw her also not consider it. Yet he saw her, +felt her, further—he heard her, with her clear voice—try +to be intensely kind with him. "I don't see, +you know, what has changed." She had a large +strange smile. "We've been going on together so +well, and you suddenly desert me?" +</p><p> +It made him helplessly gaze. "You call it so +'well'? You've touches, upon my soul—!" +</p><p> +"I call it perfect—from my original point of view. +I'm just where I was; and you must give me some +better reason than you do, my dear, for <i>your</i> not +being. It seems to me," she continued, "that we're +only right as to what has been between us so long as +we do wait. I don't think we wish to have behaved +like fools." He took in while she talked her imperturbable +consistency; which it was quietly, queerly hopeless +to see her stand there and breathe into their mild +remembering air. He had brought her there to be +moved, and she was only immoveable—which was +not moreover, either, because she didn't understand. +She understood everything, and things he +refused to; and she had reasons, deep down, the +sense of which nearly sickened him. She had too +again most of all her strange significant smile. "Of +course if it's that you really <i>know</i> something—?" It +was quite conceivable and possible to her, he could +see, that he did. But he didn't even know what she +meant, and he only looked at her in gloom. His +gloom however didn't upset her. "You do, I believe, +only you've a delicacy about saying it. Your delicacy +to me, my dear, is a scruple too much. I should +have no delicacy in hearing it, so that if you can <i>tell</i> +me you know—" +</p><p> +"Well?" he asked as she still kept what depended +on it. +</p><p> +"Why then I'll do what you want. We needn't, +I grant you, in that case wait; and I can see what you +mean by thinking it nicer of us not to. I don't even +ask you," she continued, "for a proof. I'm content +with your moral certainty." +</p><p> +By this time it had come over him—it had the +force of a rush. The point she made was clear, as +clear as that the blood, while he recognised it, +mantled in his face. "I know nothing whatever." +</p><p> +"You've not an idea?" +</p><p> +"I've not an idea." +</p><p> +"I'd consent," she said—"I'd announce it to-morrow, +to-day, I'd go home this moment and announce +it to Aunt Maud, for an idea: I mean an idea +straight <i>from</i> you, I mean as your own, given me in +good faith. There, my dear!"—and she smiled +again. "I call that really meeting you." +</p><p> +If it <i>was</i> then what she called it, it disposed of his +appeal, and he could but stand there with his wasted +passion—for it was in high passion that he had from +the morning acted—in his face. She made it all out, +bent upon her—the idea he didn't have, and the +idea he had, and his failure of insistence when it +brought up <i>that</i> challenge, and his sense of her personal +presence, and his horror, almost, of her lucidity. +They made in him a mixture that might have +been rage, but that was turning quickly to mere cold +thought, thought which led to something else and +was like a new dim dawn. It affected her then, and +she had one of the impulses, in all sincerity, that had +before this, between them, saved their position. When +she had come nearer to him, when, putting her hand +upon him, she made him sink with her, as she leaned +to him, into their old pair of chairs, she prevented +irresistibly, she forestalled, the waste of his passion. +She had an advantage with his passion now. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">III</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +He had said to her in the Park when challenged on +it that nothing had "happened" to him as a cause +for the demand he there made of her—happened he +meant since the account he had given, after his return, +of his recent experience. But in the course of a few +days—they had brought him to Christmas morning—he +was conscious enough, in preparing again to +seek her out, of a difference on that score. Something +had in this case happened to him, and, after his taking +the night to think of it he felt that what it most, if not +absolutely first, involved was his immediately again +putting himself in relation with her. The fact itself +had met him there—in his own small quarters—on +Christmas Eve, and had not then indeed at once +affected him as implying that consequence. So far +as he on the spot and for the next hours took its +measure—a process that made his night mercilessly +wakeful—the consequences possibly implied were +numerous to distraction. His spirit dealt with them, +in the darkness, as the slow hours passed; his intelligence +and his imagination, his soul and his sense, +had never on the whole been so intensely engaged. +It was his difficulty for the moment that he was +face to face with alternatives, and that it was +scarce even a question of turning from one to the +other. They were not in a perspective in which they +might be compared and considered; they were, by +a strange effect, as close as a pair of monsters of +whom he might have felt on either cheek the hot +breath and the huge eyes. He saw them at once and +but by looking straight before him; he wouldn't +for that matter, in his cold apprehension, have turned +his head by an inch. So it was that his agitation +was still—was not, for the slow hours a matter +of restless motion. He lay long, after the event, on +the sofa where, extinguishing at a touch the white +light of convenience that he hated, he had thrown +himself without undressing. He stared at the buried +day and wore out the time; with the arrival of the +Christmas dawn moreover, late and grey, he felt himself +somehow determined. The common wisdom had +had its say to him—that safety in doubt was <i>not</i> action; +and perhaps what most helped him was this +very commonness. In his case there was nothing of +<i>that</i>—in no case in his life had there ever been less: +which association, from one thing to another, now +worked for him as a choice. He acted, after his bath +and his breakfast, in the sense of that marked element +of the rare which he felt to be the sign of his crisis. +And that is why, dressed with more state than usual +and quite as if for church, he went out into the soft +Christmas day. +</p><p> +Action, for him, on coming to the point, it appeared, +carried with it a certain complexity. We should have +known, walking by his side, that his final prime decision +hadn't been to call at the door of Sir Luke +Strett, and yet that this step, though subordinate, was +none the less urgent. His prime decision was for another +matter, to which impatience, once he was on +the way, had now added itself; but he remained sufficiently +aware that he must compromise with the perhaps +excessive earliness. This, and the ferment set up +within him, were together a reason for not driving; to +say nothing of the absence of cabs in the dusky festal +desert. Sir Luke's great square was not near, but he +walked the Distance without seeing a hansom. He had +his interval thus to turn over his view—the view to +which what had happened the night before had not +sharply reduced itself; but the complexity just mentioned +was to be offered within the next few minutes +another item to assimilate. Before Sir Luke's house, +when he reached it, a brougham was drawn up—at +the sight of which his heart had a lift that brought +him for the instant to a stand. This pause wasn't +long, but it was long enough to flash upon him a revelation +in the light of which he caught his breath. The +carriage, so possibly at such an hour and on such a +day Sir Luke's own, had struck him as a sign that the +great doctor was back. This would prove something +else, in turn, still more intensely, and it was in the act +of the double apprehension that Densher felt himself +turn pale. His mind rebounded for the moment like a +projectile that has suddenly been met by another: he +stared at the strange truth that what he wanted <i>more</i> +than to see Kate Croy was to see the witness who had +just arrived from Venice. He wanted positively to be +in his presence and to hear his voice—which was the +spasm of his consciousness that produced the flash. +Fortunately for him, on the spot, there supervened +something in which the flash went out. He became +aware within this minute that the coachman on the +box of the brougham had a face known to him, +whereas he had never seen before, to his knowledge, +the great doctor's carriage. The carriage, as he came +nearer, was simply Mrs. Lowder's; the face on the box +was just the face that, in coming and going at Lancaster +Gate, he would vaguely have noticed, outside, in +attendance. With this the rest came: the lady of +Lancaster Gate had, on a prompting not wholly remote +from his own, presented herself for news; and +news, in the house, she was clearly getting, since her +brougham had stayed. Sir Luke <i>was</i> then back—only +Mrs. Lowder was with him. +</p><p> +It was under the influence of this last reflexion +that Densher again delayed; and it was while he +delayed that something else occurred to him. It was +all round, visibly—given his own new contribution—a +case of pressure; and in a case of pressure Kate, +for quicker knowledge, might have come out with her +aunt. The possibility that in this event she might be +sitting in the carriage—the thing most likely—had +had the effect, before he could check it, of bringing +him within range of the window. It wasn't there he +had wished to see her; yet if she <i>was</i> there he couldn't +pretend not to. What he had however the next moment +made out was that if some one was there it +wasn't Kate Croy. It was, with a sensible shock +for him, the person who had last offered him a conscious +face from behind the clear plate of a café in +Venice. The great glass at Florian's was a medium less +obscure, even with the window down, than the air of +the London Christmas; yet at present also, none the +less, between the two men, an exchange of recognitions +could occur. Densher felt his own look a gaping arrest—which, +he disgustedly remembered, his back as +quickly turned, appeared to repeat itself as his special +privilege. He mounted the steps of the house and +touched the bell with a keen consciousness of being +habitually looked at by Kate's friend from positions +of almost insolent vantage. He forgot for the time +the moment when, in Venice, at the palace, the encouraged +young man had in a manner assisted at the +departure of the disconcerted, since Lord Mark was +not looking disconcerted now any more than he had +looked from his bench at his café. Densher was +thinking that <i>he</i> seemed to show as vagrant while +another was ensconced. He was thinking of the +other as—in spite of the difference of situation—more +ensconced than ever; he was thinking of him +above all as the friend of the person with whom his +recognition had, the minute previous, associated +him. The man was seated in the very place in which, +beside Mrs. Lowder's, he had looked to find Kate, +and that was a sufficient identity. Meanwhile at any +rate the door of the house had opened and Mrs. +Lowder stood before him. It was something at least +that <i>she</i> wasn't Kate. She was herself, on the spot, in +all her affluence; with presence of mind both to decide +at once that Lord Mark, in the brougham, didn't +matter and to prevent Sir Luke's butler, by a firm +word thrown over her shoulder, from standing there +to listen to her passage with the gentleman who had +rung. "<i>I'll</i> tell Mr. Densher; you needn't wait!" +And the passage, promptly and richly, took place on +the steps. +</p><p> +"He arrives, travelling straight, to-morrow early. +I couldn't not come to learn." +</p><p> +"No more," said Densher simply, "could I. On +my way," he added, "to Lancaster Gate." +</p><p> +"Sweet of you." She beamed on him dimly, and +he saw her face was attuned. It made him, with what +she had just before said, know all, and he took the +thing in while he met the air of portentous, of almost +functional, sympathy that had settled itself as her +medium with him and that yet had now a fresh glow. +"So you <i>have</i> had your message?" +</p><p> +He knew so well what she meant, and so equally +with it what he "<i>had</i> had" no less than what he +hadn't, that, with but the smallest hesitation, he +strained the point. "Yes—my message." +</p><p> +"Our dear dove then, as Kate calls her, has folded +her wonderful wings." +</p><p> +"Yes—folded them." +</p><p> +It rather racked him, but he tried to receive it as +she intended, and she evidently took his formal assent +for self-control. "Unless it's more true," she +accordingly added, "that she has spread them the +wider." +</p><p> +He again but formally assented, though, strangely +enough, the words fitted a figure deep in his own +imagination. "Rather, yes—spread them the +wider." +</p><p> +"For a flight, I trust, to some happiness greater—!" +</p><p> +"Exactly. Greater," Densher broke in; but now +with a look, he feared, that did a little warn her off. +</p><p> +"You were certainly," she went on with more reserve, +"entitled to direct news. Ours came late last +night: I'm not sure otherwise I shouldn't have gone +to you. But you're coming," she asked, "to <i>me?</i>" +</p><p> +He had had a minute by this time to think further, +and the window of the brougham was still within +range. Her rich "me," reaching him moreover +through the mild damp, had the effect of a thump on +his chest. "Squared," Aunt Maud? She was indeed +squared, and the extent of it just now perversely +enough took away his breath. His look from where +they stood embraced the aperture at which the person +sitting in the carriage might have shown, and he saw +his interlocutress, on her side, understand the question +in it, which he moreover then uttered. "Shall +you be alone?" It was, as an immediate instinctive +parley with the image of his condition that now flourished +in her, almost hypocritical. It sounded as if +he wished to come and overflow to her, yet this was +exactly what he didn't. The need to overflow had +suddenly—since the night before—dried up in him, +and he had never been aware of a deeper reserve. +</p><p> +But she had meanwhile largely responded. "Completely +alone. I should otherwise never have dreamed; +feeling, dear friend, but too much!" Failing on her +lips what she felt came out for him in the offered hand +with which she had the next moment condolingly +pressed his own. "Dear friend, dear friend!"—she +was deeply "with" him, and she wished to be still +more so: which was what made her immediately continue. +"Or wouldn't you this evening, for the sad +Christmas it makes us, dine with me <i>tête-à-tête?</i>" +</p><p> +It put the thing off, the question of a talk with her—making +the difference, to his relief, of several +hours; but it also rather mystified him. This however +didn't diminish his need of caution. "Shall you +mind if I don't tell you at once?" +</p><p> +"Not in the least—leave it open: it shall be as +you may feel, and you needn't even send me word. +I only <i>will</i> mention that to-day, of all days, I shall +otherwise sit there alone." +</p><p> +Now at least he could ask. "Without Miss Croy?" +</p><p> +"Without Miss Croy. Miss Croy," said Mrs. +Lowder, "is spending her Christmas in the bosom of +her more immediate family." +</p><p> +He was afraid, even while he spoke, of what his +face might show. "You mean she has left you?" +</p><p> +Aunt Maud's own face for that matter met the +enquiry with a consciousness in which he saw a reflexion +of events. He was made sure by it, even at +the moment and as he had never been before, that +since he had known these two women no confessed +nor commented tension, no crisis of the cruder sort +would really have taken form between them: which +was precisely a high proof of how Kate had steered +her boat. The situation exposed in Mrs. Lowder's +present expression lighted up by contrast that superficial +smoothness; which afterwards, with his time to +think of it, was to put before him again the art, the +particular gift, in the girl, now so placed and classed, +so intimately familiar for him, as her talent for life. +The peace, within a day or two—since his seeing +her last—had clearly been broken; differences, deep +down, kept there by a diplomacy on Kate's part as +deep, had been shaken to the surface by some exceptional +jar; with which, in addition, he felt Lord +Mark's odd attendance at such an hour and season +vaguely associated. The talent for life indeed, it at +the same time struck him, would probably have +shown equally in the breach, or whatever had occurred; +Aunt Maud having suffered, he judged, a +strain rather than a stroke. Of these quick thoughts, +at all events, that lady was already abreast. "She +went yesterday morning—and not with my approval, +I don't mind telling you—to her sister: +Mrs. Condrip, if you know who I mean, who lives +somewhere in Chelsea. My other niece and her affairs—that +I should have to say such things to-day!—are +a constant worry; so that Kate, in consequence—well, +of events!—has simply been called in. My +own idea, I'm bound to say, was that with <i>such</i> events +she need have, in her situation, next to nothing to +do." +</p><p> +"But she differed with you?" +</p><p> +"She differed with me. And when Kate differs +with you—!" +</p><p> +"Oh I can imagine." He had reached the point +in the scale of hypocrisy at which he could ask himself +why a little more or less should signify. Besides, +with the intention he had had he <i>must</i> know. Kate's +move, if he didn't know, might simply disconcert +him; and of being disconcerted his horror was by +this time fairly superstitious. "I hope you don't +allude to events at all calamitous." +</p><p> +"No—only horrid and vulgar." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Merton Densher. +</p><p> +Mrs. Lowder's soreness, it was still not obscure, +had discovered in free speech to him a momentary +balm. "They've the misfortune to have, I suppose +you know, a dreadful horrible father." +</p><p> +"Oh!" said Densher again. +</p><p> +"He's too bad almost to name, but he has come +upon Marian, and Marian has shrieked for help." +</p><p> +Densher wondered at this with intensity; and his +curiosity compromised for an instant with his discretion. +"Come upon her—for money?" +</p><p> +"Oh for that of course always. But, at <i>this</i> blessed +season, for refuge, for safety: for God knows what. +He's <i>there</i>, the brute. And Kate's with them. And +that," Mrs. Lowder wound up, going down the steps, +"is her Christmas." +</p><p> +She had stopped again at the bottom while he +thought of an answer. "Yours then is after all rather +better." +</p><p> +"It's at least more decent." And her hand once +more came out. "But why do I talk of <i>our</i> troubles? +Come if you can." +</p><p> +He showed a faint smile. "Thanks. If I can." +</p><p> +"And now—I dare say—you'll go to church?" +</p><p> +She had asked it, with her good intention, rather +in the air and by way of sketching for him, in the line +of support, something a little more to the purpose +than what she had been giving him. He felt it as +finishing off their intensities of expression that he +found himself to all appearance receiving her hint as +happy. "Why yes—I think I will": after which, +as the door of the brougham, at her approach, had +opened from within, he was free to turn his back. He +heard the door, behind him, sharply close again and +the vehicle move off in another direction than his own. +</p><p> +He had in fact for the time no direction; in spite +of which indeed he was at the end of ten minutes +aware of having walked straight to the south. That, +he afterwards recognised, was, very sufficiently, because +there had formed itself in his mind, even while +Aunt Maud finally talked, an instant recognition of +his necessary course. Nothing was open to him but +to follow Kate, nor was anything more marked than +the influence of the step she had taken on the emotion +itself that possessed him. Her complications, +which had fairly, with everything else, an awful +sound—what were they, a thousand times over, but +his own? His present business was to see that they +didn't escape an hour longer taking their proper +place in his life. He accordingly would have held +his course hadn't it suddenly come over him that he +had just lied to Mrs. Lowder—a term it perversely +eased him to keep using—even more than was necessary. +To what church was he going, to what church, +in such a state of his nerves, <i>could</i> he go?—he pulled +up short again, as he had pulled up in sight of Mrs. +Lowder's carriage, to ask it. And yet the desire +queerly stirred in him not to have wasted his word. +He was just then however by a happy chance in the +Brompton Road, and he bethought himself with a +sudden light that the Oratory was at hand. He had +but to turn the other way and he should find himself +soon before it. At the door then, in a few minutes, +his idea was really—as it struck him—consecrated: +he was, pushing in, on the edge of a splendid service—the +flocking crowd told of it—which glittered and +resounded, from distant depths, in the blaze of altar-lights +and the swell of organ and choir. It didn't +match his own day, but it was much less of a discord +than some other things actual and possible. The +Oratory in short, to make him right, would do. +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">IV</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +The difference was thus that the dusk of afternoon—dusk +thick from an early hour—had gathered +when he knocked at Mrs. Condrip's door. He had +gone from the church to his club, wishing not to present +himself in Chelsea at luncheon-time and also +remembering that he must attempt independently to +make a meal. This, in the event, he but imperfectly +achieved: he dropped into a chair in the great dim +void of the club library, with nobody, up or down, to +be seen, and there after a while, closing his eyes, +recovered an hour of the sleep he had lost during +the night. Before doing this indeed he had written—it +was the first thing he did—a short note, which, +in the Christmas desolation of the place, he had managed +only with difficulty and doubt to commit to a +messenger. He wished it carried by hand, and he was +obliged, rather blindly, to trust the hand, as the messenger, +for some reason, was unable to return with a +gage of delivery. When at four o'clock he was face to +face with Kate in Mrs. Condrip's small drawing-room +he found to his relief that his notification had reached +her. She was expectant and to that extent prepared; +which simplified a little—if a little, at the present +pass, counted. Her conditions were vaguely vivid to +him from the moment of his coming in, and vivid +partly by their difference, a difference sharp and suggestive, +from those in which he had hitherto constantly +seen her. He had seen her but in places comparatively +great; in her aunt's pompous house, under +the high trees of Kensington and the storied ceilings +of Venice. He had seen her, in Venice, on a great +occasion, as the centre itself of the splendid Piazza: +he had seen her there, on a still greater one, in his +own poor rooms, which yet had consorted with her, +having state and ancientry even in their poorness; +but Mrs. Condrip's interior, even by this best view of +it and though not flagrantly mean, showed itself as +a setting almost grotesquely inapt. Pale, grave and +charming, she affected him at once as a distinguished +stranger—a stranger to the little Chelsea street—who +was making the best of a queer episode and a +place of exile. The extraordinary thing was that at +the end of three minutes he felt himself less appointedly +a stranger in it than she. +</p><p> +A part of the queerness—this was to come to him +in glimpses—sprang from the air as of a general +large misfit imposed on the narrow room by the scale +and mass of its furniture. The objects, the ornaments +were, for the sisters, clearly relics and survivals +of what would, in the case of Mrs. Condrip at +least, have been called better days. The curtains that +overdraped the windows, the sofas and tables +that stayed circulation, the chimney-ornaments that +reached to the ceiling and the florid chandelier that almost +dropped to the floor, were so many mementoes +of earlier homes and so many links with their unhappy +mother. Whatever might have been in itself +the quality of these elements Densher could feel the +effect proceeding from them, as they lumpishly +blocked out the decline of the dim day, to be ugly +almost to the point of the sinister. They failed to +accommodate or to compromise; they asserted their +differences without tact and without taste. It was +truly having a sense of Kate's own quality thus +promptly to see them in reference to it. But that +Densher had this sense was no new thing to him, nor +did he in strictness need, for the hour, to be reminded +of it. He only knew, by one of the tricks his imagination +so constantly played him, that he was, so far as +her present tension went, very specially sorry for her—which +was not the view that had determined his +start in the morning; yet also that he himself would +have taken it all, as he might say, less hard. <i>He</i> +could have lived in such a place; but it wasn't given +to those of his complexion, so to speak, to be exiled +anywhere. It was by their comparative grossness +that they could somehow make shift. His natural, +his inevitable, his ultimate home—left, that is, +to itself—wasn't at all unlikely to be as queer and +impossible as what was just round them, though +doubtless in less ample masses. As he took in moreover +how Kate wouldn't have been in the least the +creature she was if what was just round them hadn't +mismatched her, hadn't made for her a medium involving +compunction in the spectator, so, by the +same stroke, that became the very fact of her relation +with her companions there, such a fact as filled him +at once, oddly, both with assurance and with suspense. +If he himself, on this brief vision, felt her as +alien and as ever so unwittingly ironic, how must they +not feel her and how above all must she not feel them? +</p><p> +Densher could ask himself that even after she had +presently lighted the tall candles on the mantel-shelf. +This was all their illumination but the fire, and she +had proceeded to it with a quiet dryness that yet left +play, visibly, to her implication between them, in +their trouble and failing anything better, of the presumably +genial Christmas hearth. So far as the genial +went this had in strictness, given their conditions, to +be all their geniality. He had told her in his note +nothing but that he must promptly see her and that +he hoped she might be able to make it possible; but +he understood from the first look at her that his +promptitude was already having for her its principal +reference. "I was prevented this morning, in the few +minutes," he explained, "asking Mrs. Lowder if she +had let you know, though I rather gathered she had; +and it's what I've been in fact since then assuming. +It was because I was so struck at the moment with +your having, as she did tell me, so suddenly come +here." +</p><p> +"Yes, it was sudden enough." Very neat and fine +in the contracted firelight, with her hands in her +lap, Kate considered what he had said. He had +spoken immediately of what had happened at Sir +Luke Strett's door. "She has let me know nothing. +But that doesn't matter—if it's what <i>you</i> mean." +</p><p> +"It's part of what I mean," Densher said; but +what he went on with, after a pause during which she +waited, was apparently not the rest of that. "She +had had her telegram from Mrs. Stringham; late +last night. But to me the poor lady hasn't wired. +The event," he added, "will have taken place yesterday, +and Sir Luke, starting immediately, one can see, +and travelling straight, will get back to-morrow +morning. So that Mrs. Stringham, I judge, is left +to face in some solitude the situation bequeathed to +her. But of course," he wound up, "Sir Luke +couldn't stay." +</p><p> +Her look at him might have had in it a vague betrayal +of the sense that he was gaining time. "Was +your telegram from Sir Luke?" +</p><p> +"No—I've had no telegram." +</p><p> +She wondered. "But not a letter—?" +</p><p> +"Not from Mrs. Stringham—no." He failed +again however to develop this—for which her forbearance +from another question gave him occasion. +From whom then had he heard? He might at last, +confronted with her, really have been gaining time; +and as if to show that she respected this impulse she +made her enquiry different. "Should you like to +go out to her—to Mrs. Stringham?" +</p><p> +About that at least he was clear. "Not at all. +She's alone, but she's very capable and very courageous. +Besides—!" He had been going on, but he +dropped. +</p><p> +"Besides," she said, "there's Eugenio? Yes, of +course one remembers Eugenio." +</p><p> +She had uttered the words as definitely to show +them for not untender; and he showed equally every +reason to assent. "One remembers him indeed, and +with every ground for it. He'll be of the highest value +to her—he's capable of anything. What I was going +to say," he went on, "is that some of their people +from America must quickly arrive." +</p><p> +On this, as happened, Kate was able at once to +satisfy him. "Mr. Someone-or-other, the person +principally in charge of Milly's affairs—her first +trustee, I suppose—had just got there at Mrs. Stringham's +last writing." +</p><p> +"Ah that then was after your aunt last spoke to +me—I mean the last time before this morning. +I'm relieved to hear it. So," he said, "they'll do." +</p><p> +"Oh they'll do." And it came from each still as +if it wasn't what each was most thinking of. Kate +presently got however a step nearer to that. "But if +you had been wired to by nobody what then this +morning had taken you to Sir Luke?" +</p><p> +"Oh something else—which I'll presently tell +you. It's what made me instantly need to see you; +it's what I've come to speak to you of. But in a +minute. I feel too many things," he went on, "at +seeing you in this place." He got up as he spoke; +she herself remained perfectly still. His movement +had been to the fire, and, leaning a little, with his +back to it, to look down on her from where he stood, +he confined himself to his point. "Is it anything very +bad that has brought you?" +</p><p> +He had now in any case said enough to justify her +wish for more; so that, passing this matter by, she +pressed her own challenge. "Do you mean, if I +may ask, that <i>she</i>, dying—?" Her face, wondering, +pressed it more than her words. +</p><p> +"Certainly you may ask," he after a moment said. +"What has come to me is what, as I say, I came expressly +to tell you. I don't mind letting you know," +he went on, "that my decision to do this took for +me last night and this morning a great deal of thinking +of. But here I am." And he indulged in a smile +that couldn't, he was well aware, but strike her as +mechanical. +</p><p> +She went straighter with him, she seemed to +show, than he really went with her. "You didn't +want to come?" +</p><p> +"It would have been simple, my dear"—and he +continued to smile—"if it had been, one way or the +other, only a question of 'wanting.' It took, I admit +it, the idea of what I had best do, all sorts of +difficult and portentous forms. It came up for me +really—well, not at all for my happiness." +</p><p> +This word apparently puzzled her—she studied +him in the light of it. "You look upset—you've +certainly been tormented. You're not well." +</p><p> +"Oh—well enough!" +</p><p> +But she continued without heeding. "You hate +what you're doing." +</p><p> +"My dear girl, you simplify"—and he was now +serious enough. "It isn't so simple even as that." +</p><p> +She had the air of thinking what it then might be. +"I of course can't, with no clue, know what it is." +She remained none the less patient and still. "If +at such a moment she could write you one's inevitably +quite at sea. One doesn't, with the best will +in the world, understand." And then as Densher +had a pause which might have stood for all the +involved explanation that, to his discouragement, +loomed before him: "You <i>haven't</i> decided what to +do." +</p><p> +She had said it very gently, almost sweetly, and he +didn't instantly say otherwise. But he said so after +a look at her. "Oh yes—I have. Only with this sight +of you here and what I seem to see in it for you—!" +And his eyes, as at suggestions that pressed, turned +from one part of the room to another. +</p><p> +"Horrible place, isn't it?" said Kate. +</p><p> +It brought him straight back to his enquiry. "Is +it for anything awful you've had to come?" +</p><p> +"Oh that will take as long to tell you as anything +<i>you</i> may have. Don't mind," she continued, "the +'sight of me here,' nor whatever—which is more +than I yet know myself—may be 'in it' for me. +And kindly consider too that, after all, if you're in +trouble I can a little wish to help you. Perhaps I can +absolutely even do it." +</p><p> +"My dear child, it's just because of the sense of +your wish—! I suppose I'm in trouble—I suppose +that's it." He said this with so odd a suddenness +of simplicity that she could only stare for it—which +he as promptly saw. So he turned off as he could +his vagueness. "And yet I oughtn't to be." Which +sounded indeed vaguer still. +</p><p> +She waited a moment. "Is it, as you say for my +own business, anything very awful?" +</p><p> +"Well," he slowly replied, "you'll tell me if you +find it so. I mean if you find my idea—" +</p><p> +He was so slow that she took him up. "Awful?" +A sound of impatience—the form of a laugh—at +last escaped her. "I can't find it anything at all till +I know what you're talking about." +</p><p> +It brought him then more to the point, though it +did so at first but by making him, on the hearthrug +before her, with his hands in his pockets, turn awhile +to and fro. There rose in him even with this movement +a recall of another time—the hour in Venice, +the hour of gloom and storm, when Susan Shepherd +had sat in his quarters there very much as Kate was +sitting now, and he had wondered, in pain even as +now, what he might say and mightn't. Yet the present +occasion after all was somehow the easier. He +tried at any rate to attach that feeling to it while +he stopped before his companion. "The communication +I speak of can't possibly belong—so far as its +date is concerned—to these last days. The postmark, +which is legible, does; but it isn't thinkable, +for anything else, that she wrote—!" He dropped, +looking at her as if she'd understand. +</p><p> +It was easy to understand. "On her deathbed?" +But Kate took an instant's thought. "Aren't we +agreed that there was never any one in the world like +her?" +</p><p> +"Yes." And looking over her head he spoke clearly +enough. "There was never any one in the world like +her." +</p><p> +Kate, from her chair, always without a movement, +raised her eyes to the unconscious reach of his own. +Then when the latter again dropped to her she added +a question. "And won't it further depend a little on +what the communication is?" +</p><p> +"A little perhaps—but not much. It's a communication," +said Densher. +</p><p> +"Do you mean a letter?" +</p><p> +"Yes, a letter. Addressed to me in her hand—in +hers unmistakeably." +</p><p> +Kate thought. "Do you know her hand very well?" +</p><p> +"Oh perfectly." +</p><p> +It was as if his tone for this prompted—with a +slight strangeness—her next demand. "Have you +had many letters from her?" +</p><p> +"No. Only three notes." He spoke looking straight +at her. "And very, very short ones." +</p><p> +"Ah," said Kate, "the number doesn't matter. +Three lines would be enough if you're sure you remember." +</p><p> +"I'm sure I remember. Besides," Densher continued, +"I've seen her hand in other ways. I seem +to recall how you once, before she went to Venice, +showed me one of her notes precisely <i>for</i> that. And +then she once copied me something." +</p><p> +"Oh," said Kate almost with a smile, "I don't ask +you for the detail of your reasons. One good one's +enough." To which however she added as if precisely +not to speak with impatience or with anything like +irony: "And the writing has its usual look?" +</p><p> +Densher answered as if even to better that description +of it. "It's beautiful." +</p><p> +"Yes—it <i>was</i> beautiful. Well," Kate, to defer +to him still, further remarked, "it's not news to +us now that she was stupendous. Anything's possible." +</p><p> +"Yes, anything's possible"—he appeared oddly +to catch at it. "That's what I say to myself. It's +what I've been believing you," he a trifle vaguely +explained, "still more certain to feel." +</p><p> +She waited for him to say more, but he only, with +his hands in his pockets, turned again away, going this +time to the single window of the room, where in the +absence of lamplight the blind hadn't been drawn. +He looked out into the lamplit fog, lost himself in the +small sordid London street—for sordid, with his +other association, he felt it—as he had lost himself, +with Mrs. Stringham's eyes on him, in the vista of the +Grand Canal. It was present then to his recording +consciousness that when he had last been driven to +such an attitude the very depth of his resistance to the +opportunity to give Kate away was what had so driven +him. His waiting companion had on that occasion +waited for him to say he <i>would</i>; and what he had +meantime glowered forth at was the inanity of such +a hope. Kate's attention, on her side, during these +minutes, rested on the back and shoulders he thus +familiarly presented—rested as with a view of their +expression, a reference to things unimparted, links +still missing and that she must ever miss, try to make +them out as she would. The result of her tension was +that she again took him up. "You received—what +you spoke of—last night?" +</p><p> +It made him turn round. "Coming in from Fleet +Street—earlier by an hour than usual—I found it +with some other letters on my table. But my eyes +went straight to it, in an extraordinary way, from the +door. I recognised it, knew what it was, without +touching it." +</p><p> +"One can understand." She listened with respect. +His tone however was so singular that she presently +added: "You speak as if all this while you <i>hadn't</i> +touched it." +</p><p> +"Oh yes, I've touched it. I feel as if, ever since, +I'd been touching nothing else. I quite firmly," he +pursued as if to be plainer, "took hold of it." +</p><p> +"Then where is it?" +</p><p> +"Oh I have it here." +</p><p> +"And you've brought it to show me?" +</p><p> +"I've brought it to show you." +</p><p> +So he said with a distinctness that had, among his +other oddities, almost a sound of cheer, yet making +no movement that matched his words. She could +accordingly but offer again her expectant face, while +his own, to her impatience, seemed perversely to fill +with another thought. "But now that you've done +so you feel you don't want to." +</p><p> +"I want to immensely," he said. "Only you tell +me nothing." +</p><p> +She smiled at him, with this, finally, as if he were +an unreasonable child. "It seems to me I tell you +quite as much as you tell me. You haven't yet even +told me how it is that such explanations as you require +don't come from your document itself." Then +as he answered nothing she had a flash. "You mean +you haven't read it?" +</p><p> +"I haven't read it." +</p><p> +She stared. "Then how am I to help you with +it?" +</p><p> +Again leaving her while she never budged he paced +five strides, and again he was before her. "By telling +me <i>this</i>. It's something, you know, that you wouldn't +tell me the other day." +</p><p> +She was vague. "The other day?" +</p><p> +"The first time after my return—the Sunday I +came to you. What's he doing," Densher went on, +"at that hour of the morning with her? What does +his having been with her there mean?" +</p><p> +"Of whom are you talking?" +</p><p> +"Of that man—Lord Mark of course. What does +it represent?" +</p><p> +"Oh with Aunt Maud?" +</p><p> +"Yes, my dear—and with you. It comes more or +less to the same thing; and it's what you didn't tell +me the other day when I put you the question." +</p><p> +Kate tried to remember the other day. "You +asked me nothing about any hour." +</p><p> +"I asked you when it was you last saw him—previous, +I mean, to his second descent at Venice. You +wouldn't say, and as we were talking of a matter +comparatively more important I let it pass. But the +fact remains, you know, my dear, that you haven't +told me." +</p><p> +Two things in this speech appeared to have reached +Kate more distinctly than the others. "I 'wouldn't +say'?—and you 'let it pass'?" She looked just +coldly blank. "You really speak as if I were keeping +something back." +</p><p> +"Well, you see," Densher persisted, "you're not +even telling me now. All I want to know," he nevertheless +explained, "is whether there was a connexion +between that proceeding on his part, which was practically—oh +beyond all doubt!—the shock precipitating +for her what has now happened, and anything +that had occurred with him previously for yourself. +How in the world did he know we're engaged?" +</p> +<br><br> +<h2 align="center">V</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +Kate slowly rose; it was, since she had lighted the +candles and sat down, the first movement she had +made. "Are you trying to fix it on me that I must +have told him?" +</p><p> +She spoke not so much in resentment as in pale dismay—which +he showed he immediately took in. +"My dear child, I'm not trying to 'fix' anything; but +I'm extremely tormented and I seem not to understand. +What has the brute to do with us anyway?" +</p><p> +"What has he indeed?" Kate asked. +</p><p> +She shook her head as if in recovery, within the +minute, of some mild allowance for his unreason. +There was in it—and for his reason really—one of +those half-inconsequent sweetnesses by which she had +often before made, over some point of difference, her +own terms with him. Practically she was making +them now, and essentially he was knowing it; yet inevitably, +all the same, he was accepting it. She stood +there close to him, with something in her patience +that suggested her having supposed, when he spoke +more appealingly, that he was going to kiss her. He +hadn't been, it appeared; but his continued appeal +was none the less the quieter. "What's he doing, +from ten o'clock on Christmas morning, with Mrs. +Lowder?" +</p><p> +Kate looked surprised. "Didn't she tell you he's +staying there?" +</p><p> +"At Lancaster Gate?" Densher's surprise met it. +"'Staying'?—since when?" +</p><p> +"Since day before yesterday. He was there before +I came away." And then she explained—confessing +it in fact anomalous. "It's an accident—like Aunt +Maud's having herself remained in town for Christmas, +but it isn't after all so monstrous. <i>We</i> stayed—and, +with my having come here, she's sorry now—because +we neither of us, waiting from day to day +for the news you brought, seemed to want to be with +a lot of people." +</p><p> +"You stayed for thinking of—Venice?" +</p><p> +"Of course we did. For what else? And even a +little," Kate wonderfully added—"it's true at least +of Aunt Maud—for thinking of you." +</p><p> +He appreciated. "I see. Nice of you every way. +But whom," he enquired, "has Lord Mark stayed for +thinking of?" +</p><p> +"His being in London, I believe, is a very commonplace +matter. He has some rooms which he has +had suddenly some rather advantageous chance to +let—such as, with his confessed, his decidedly proclaimed +want of money, he hasn't had it in him, in +spite of everything, not to jump at." +</p><p> +Densher's attention was entire. "In spite of everything? +In spite of what?" +</p><p> +"Well, I don't know. In spite, say, of his being +scarcely supposed to do that sort of thing." +</p><p> +"To try to get money?" +</p><p> +"To try at any rate in little thrifty ways. Apparently +however he has had for some reason to do what +he can. He turned at a couple of days' notice out of +his place, making it over to his tenant; and Aunt +Maud, who's deeply in his confidence about all such +matters, said: 'Come then to Lancaster Gate—to +sleep at least—till, like all the world, you go to the +country.' He was to have gone to the country—I +think to Matcham—yesterday afternoon: Aunt +Maud, that is, told me he was." +</p><p> +Kate had been somehow, for her companion, through +this statement, beautifully, quite soothingly, suggestive. +"Told you, you mean, so that you needn't leave +the house?" +</p><p> +"Yes—so far as she had taken it into her head +that his being there was part of my reason." +</p><p> +"And <i>was</i> it part of your reason?" +</p><p> +"A little if you like. Yet there's plenty here—as +I knew there would be—without it. So that," she +said candidly, "doesn't matter. I'm glad I am here: +even if for all the good I do—!" She implied however +that that didn't matter either. "He didn't, as +you tell me, get off then to Matcham; though he may +possibly, if it is possible, be going this afternoon. But +what strikes me as most probable—and it's really, +I'm bound to say, quite amiable of him—is that he +has declined to leave Aunt Maud, as I've been so +ready to do, to spend her Christmas alone. If moreover +he has given up Matcham for her it's a <i>procédé</i> +that won't please her less. It's small wonder therefore +that she insists, on a dull day, in driving him +about. I don't pretend to know," she wound up, +"what may happen between them; but that's all I see +in it." +</p><p> +"You see in everything, and you always did," Densher +returned, "something that, while I'm with you +at least, I always take from you as the truth itself." +</p><p> +She looked at him as if consciously and even carefully +extracting the sting of his reservation; then she +spoke with a quiet gravity that seemed to show how fine +she found it. "Thank you." It had for him, like +everything else, its effect. They were still closely face +to face, and, yielding to the impulse to which he +hadn't yielded just before, he laid his hands on her +shoulders, held her hard a minute and shook her a +little, far from untenderly, as if in expression of more +mingled things, all difficult, than he could speak. +Then bending his head he applied his lips to her +cheek. He fell, after this, away for an instant, resuming +his unrest, while she kept the position in which, +all passive and as a statue, she had taken his demonstration. +It didn't prevent her, however, from offering +him, as if what she had had was enough for +the moment, a further indulgence. She made a quiet +lucid connexion and as she made it sat down again. +"I've been trying to place exactly, as to its date, +something that did happen to me while you were in +Venice. I mean a talk with him. He spoke to me—spoke +out." +</p><p> +"Ah there you are!" said Densher who had wheeled +round. +</p><p> +"Well, if I'm 'there,' as you so gracefully call it, +by having refused to meet him as he wanted—as he +pressed—I plead guilty to being so. Would you have +liked me," she went on, "to give him an answer that +would have kept him from going?" +</p><p> +It made him a little awkwardly think. "Did you +know he was going?" +</p><p> +"Never for a moment; but I'm afraid that—even +if it doesn't fit your strange suppositions—I should +have given him just the same answer if I had known. +If it's a matter I haven't, since your return, thrust +upon you, that's simply because it's not a matter in +the memory of which I find a particular joy. I hope +that if I've satisfied you about it," she continued, +"it's not too much to ask of you to let it rest." +</p><p> +"Certainly," said Densher kindly, "I'll let it rest." +But the next moment he pursued: "He saw something. +He guessed." +</p><p> +"If you mean," she presently returned, "that he +was unfortunately the one person we hadn't deceived, +I can't contradict you." +</p><p> +"No—of course not. But <i>why</i>," Densher still +risked, "was he unfortunately the one person—? +He's not really a bit intelligent." +</p><p> +"Intelligent enough apparently to have seen a +mystery, a riddle, in anything so unnatural as—all +things considered and when it came to the point—my +attitude. So he gouged out his conviction, and +on his conviction he acted." +</p><p> +Densher seemed for a little to look at Lord Mark's +conviction as if it were a blot on the face of nature. +"Do you mean because you had appeared to him to +have encouraged him?" +</p><p> +"Of course I had been decent to him. Otherwise +where <i>were</i> we?" +</p><p> +"'Where'—?" +</p><p> +"You and I. What I appeared to him, however, +hadn't mattered. What mattered was how I appeared +to Aunt Maud. Besides, you must remember +that he has had all along his impression of <i>you</i>. You +can't help it," she said, "but you're after all—well, +yourself." +</p><p> +"As much myself as you please. But when I took +myself to Venice and kept myself there—what," +Densher asked, "did he make of that?" +</p><p> +"Your being in Venice and liking to be—which is +never on any one's part a monstrosity—was explicable +for him in other ways. He was quite capable +moreover of seeing it as dissimulation." +</p><p> +"In spite of Mrs. Lowder?" +</p><p> +"No," said Kate, "not in spite of Mrs. Lowder +now. Aunt Maud, before what you call his second +descent, hadn't convinced him—all the more that +my refusal of him didn't help. But he came back +convinced." And then as her companion still showed +a face at a loss: "I mean after he had seen Milly, +spoken to her and left her. Milly convinced him." +</p><p> +"Milly?" Densher again but vaguely echoed. +</p><p> +"That you were sincere. That it was <i>her</i> you +loved." It came to him from her in such a way that +he instantly, once more, turned, found himself yet +again at his window. "Aunt Maud, on his return +here," she meanwhile continued, "had it from him. +And that's why you're now so well with Aunt Maud." +</p><p> +He only for a minute looked out in silence—after +which he came away. "And why <i>you</i> are." It was +almost, in its extremely affirmative effect between +them, the note of recrimination; or it would have +been perhaps rather if it hadn't been so much more +the note of truth. It was sharp because it was true, +but its truth appeared to impose it as an argument +so conclusive as to permit on neither side a sequel. +That made, while they faced each other over it without +speech, the gravity of everything. It was as if +there were almost danger, which the wrong word +might start. Densher accordingly at last acted to better +purpose: he drew, standing there before her, a +pocket-book from the breast of his waistcoat and he +drew from the pocket-book a folded letter to which +her eyes attached themselves. He restored then the +receptacle to its place and, with a movement not the +less odd for being visibly instinctive and unconscious, +carried the hand containing his letter behind him. +What he thus finally spoke of was a different matter. +"Did I understand from Mrs. Lowder that your father's +in the house?" +</p><p> +If it never had taken her long in such excursions +to meet him it was not to take her so now. "In the +house, yes. But we needn't fear his interruption"—she +spoke as if he had thought of that. "He's in +bed." +</p><p> +"Do you mean with illness?" +</p><p> +She sadly shook her head. "Father's never ill. +He's a marvel. He's only—endless." +</p><p> +Densher thought. "Can I in any way help you +with him?" +</p><p> +"Yes." She perfectly, wearily, almost serenely, +had it all. "By our making your visit as little of an +affair as possible for him—and for Marian too." +</p><p> +"I see. They hate so your seeing me. Yet I couldn't—could +I?—not have come." +</p><p> +"No, you couldn't not have come." +</p><p> +"But I can only, on the other hand, go as soon as +possible?" +</p><p> +Quickly it almost upset her. "Ah don't, to-day, +put ugly words into my mouth. I've enough of my +trouble without it." +</p><p> +"I know—I know!" He spoke in instant pleading. +"It's all only that I'm as troubled <i>for</i> you. When +did he come?" +</p><p> +"Three days ago—after he hadn't been near her +for more than a year, after he had apparently, and +not regrettably, ceased to remember her existence; +and in a state which made it impossible not to take +him in." +</p><p> +Densher hesitated. "Do you mean in such +want—?" +</p><p> +"No, not of food, of necessary things—not even, +so far as his appearance went, of money. He looked +as wonderful as ever. But he was—well, in terror." +</p><p> +"In terror of what?" +</p><p> +"I don't know. Of somebody—of something. +He wants, he says, to be quiet. But his quietness is +awful." +</p><p> +She suffered, but he couldn't not question. +"What does he do?" +</p><p> +It made Kate herself hesitate. "He cries." +</p><p> +Again for a moment he hung fire, but he risked it. +"What <i>has</i> he done?" +</p><p> +It made her slowly rise, and they were once more +fully face to face. Her eyes held his own and she was +paler than she had been. "If you love me—now—don't +ask me about father." +</p><p> +He waited again a moment. "I love you. It's because +I love you that I'm here. It's because I love +you that I've brought you this." And he drew from +behind him the letter that had remained in his hand. +</p><p> +But her eyes only—though he held it out—met +the offer. "Why you've not broken the seal!" +</p><p> +"If I had broken the seal—exactly—I should +know what's within. It's for <i>you</i> to break the seal +that I bring it." +</p><p> +She looked—still not touching the thing—inordinately +grave. "To break the seal of something to +you from <i>her?</i>" +</p><p> +"Ah precisely because it's from her. I'll abide by +whatever you think of it." +</p><p> +"I don't understand," said Kate. "What do you +yourself think?" And then as he didn't answer: +"It seems to me <i>I</i> think you know. You have your +instinct. You don't need to read. It's the proof." +</p><p> +Densher faced her words as if they had been an accusation, +an accusation for which he was prepared +and which there was but one way to face. "I have +indeed my instinct. It came to me, while I worried +it out, last night. It came to me as an effect of the +hour." He held up his letter and seemed now to insist +more than to confess. "This thing had been +timed." +</p><p> +"For Christmas Eve?" +</p><p> +"For Christmas Eve." +</p><p> +Kate had suddenly a strange smile. "The season +of gifts!" After which, as he said nothing, she went +on: "And had been written, you mean, while she +could write, and kept to <i>be</i> so timed?" +</p><p> +Only meeting her eyes while he thought, he again +didn't reply. "What do <i>you</i> mean by the proof?" +</p><p> +"Why of the beauty with which you've been loved. +But I won't," she said, "break your seal." +</p><p> +"You positively decline?" +</p><p> +"Positively. Never." To which she added oddly: +"I know without." +</p><p> +He had another pause. "And what is it you +know?" +</p><p> +"That she announces to you she has made you +rich." +</p><p> +His pause this time was longer. "Left me her +fortune?" +</p><p> +"Not all of it, no doubt, for it's immense. But +money to a large amount. I don't care," Kate went +on, "to know how much." And her strange smile +recurred. "I trust her." +</p><p> +"Did she tell you?" Densher asked. +</p><p> +"Never!" Kate visibly flushed at the thought. +"That wouldn't, on my part, have been playing fair +with her. And I did," she added, "play fair." +</p><p> +Densher, who had believed her—he couldn't help +it—continued, holding his letter, to face her. He +was much quieter now, as if his torment had somehow +passed. "You played fair with me, Kate; and +that's why—since we talk of proofs—I want to give +<i>you</i> one. I've wanted to let you see—and in preference +even to myself—something I feel as sacred." +</p><p> +She frowned a little. "I don't understand." +</p><p> +"I've asked myself for a tribute, for a sacrifice by +which I can peculiarly recognise—" +</p><p> +"Peculiarly recognise what?" she demanded as he +dropped. +</p><p> +"The admirable nature of your own sacrifice. +You were capable in Venice of an act of splendid +generosity." +</p><p> +"And the privilege you offer me with that document +is my reward?" +</p><p> +He made a movement. "It's all I can do as a symbol +of my attitude." +</p><p> +She looked at him long. "Your attitude, my dear, +is that you're afraid of yourself. You've had to +take yourself in hand. You've had to do yourself +violence." +</p><p> +"So it is then you meet me?" +</p><p> +She bent her eyes hard a moment to the letter, from +which her hand still stayed itself. "You absolutely +<i>desire</i> me to take it?" +</p><p> +"I absolutely desire you to take it." +</p><p> +"To do what I like with it?" +</p><p> +"Short of course of making known its terms. It +must remain—pardon my making the point—between +you and me." +</p><p> +She had a last hesitation, but she presently broke +it. "Trust me." Taking from him the sacred script +she held it a little while her eyes again rested on +those fine characters of Milly's that they had shortly +before discussed. "To hold it," she brought out, "is +to know." +</p><p> +"Oh I <i>know!</i>" said Merton Densher. +</p><p> +"Well then if we both do—!" She had already +turned to the fire, nearer to which she had moved, +and with a quick gesture had jerked the thing into the +flame. He started—but only half—as to undo her +action: his arrest was as prompt as the latter had been +decisive. He only watched, with her, the paper burn; +after which their eyes again met. "You'll have it all," +Kate said, "from New York." +</p><p> +It was after he had in fact, two months later, heard +from New York that she paid him a visit one morning +at his own quarters—coming not as she had +come in Venice, under his extreme solicitation, but +as a need recognised in the first instance by herself, +even though also as the prompt result of a missive +delivered to her. This had consisted of a note from +Densher accompanying a letter, "just to hand," addressed +him by an eminent American legal firm, a +firm of whose high character he had become conscious +while in New York as of a thing in the air +itself, and whose head and front, the principal executor +of Milly Theale's copious will, had been duly +identified at Lancaster Gate as the gentleman hurrying +out, by the straight southern course, before the +girl's death, to the support of Mrs. Stringham. Densher's +act on receipt of the document in question—an act +as to which and to the bearings of which his +resolve had had time to mature—constituted in strictness, +singularly enough, the first reference to Milly, +or to what Milly might or might not have done, that +had passed between our pair since they had stood +together watching the destruction, in the little vulgar +grate at Chelsea, of the undisclosed work of her hand. +They had at the time, and in due deference now, on +his part, to Kate's mention of her responsibility for +his call, immediately separated, and when they met +again the subject was made present to them—at all +events till some flare of new light—only by the intensity +with which it mutely expressed its absence. +They were not moreover in these weeks to meet +often, in spite of the fact that this had, during January +and a part of February, actually become for +them a comparatively easy matter. Kate's stay at +Mrs. Condrip's prolonged itself under allowances +from her aunt which would have been a mystery to +Densher had he not been admitted, at Lancaster +Gate, really in spite of himself, to the esoteric view +of them. "It's her idea," Mrs. Lowder had there +said to him as if she really despised ideas—which she +didn't; "and I've taken up with my own, which is to +give her her head till she has had enough of it. She +<i>has</i> had enough of it, she had that soon enough; but +as she's as proud as the deuce she'll come back when +she has found some reason—having nothing in common +with her disgust—of which she can make a +show. She calls it her holiday, which she's spending +in her own way—the holiday to which, once a year or +so, as she says, the very maids in the scullery have a +right. So we're taking it on that basis. But we shall +not soon, I think, take another of the same sort. Besides, +she's quite decent; she comes often—whenever +I make her a sign; and she has been good, on +the whole, this year or two, so that, to be decent myself, +I don't complain. She has really been, poor +dear, very much what one hoped; though I needn't, +you know," Aunt Maud wound up, "tell <i>you</i>, after +all, you clever creature, what that was." +</p><p> +It had been partly in truth to keep down the opportunity +for this that Densher's appearances under +the good lady's roof markedly, after Christmas, interspaced +themselves. The phase of his situation +that on his return from Venice had made them for +a short time almost frequent was at present quite obscured, +and with it the impulse that had then acted. +Another phase had taken its place, which he would +have been painfully at a loss as yet to name or otherwise +set on its feet, but of which the steadily rising +tide left Mrs. Lowder, for his desire, quite high and +dry. There had been a moment when it seemed +possible that Mrs. Stringham, returning to America +under convoy, would pause in London on her way +and be housed with her old friend; in which case he +was prepared for some apparent zeal of attendance. +But this danger passed—he had felt it a danger, and +the person in the world whom he would just now +have most valued seeing on his own terms sailed +away westward from Genoa. He thereby only wrote +to her, having broken, in this respect, after Milly's +death, the silence as to the sense of which, before that +event, their agreement had been so deep. She had +answered him from Venice twice, and had had time +to answer him twice again from New York. The last +letter of her four had come by the same post as the +document he sent on to Kate, but he hadn't gone into +the question of also enclosing that. His correspondence +with Milly's companion was somehow already +presenting itself to him as a feature—as a factor, +he would have said in his newspaper—of the time +whatever it might be, long or short, in store for him; +but one of his acutest current thoughts was apt to be +devoted to his not having yet mentioned it to Kate. +She had put him no question, no "Don't you ever +hear?"—so that he hadn't been brought to the +point. This he described to himself as a mercy, for +he liked his secret. It was as a secret that, in the same +personal privacy, he described his transatlantic commerce, +scarce even wincing while he recognised it as +the one connexion in which he wasn't straight. He +had in fact for this connexion a vivid mental image—he +saw it as a small emergent rock in the waste of +waters, the bottomless grey expanse of straightness. +The fact that he had on several recent occasions taken +with Kate an out-of-the-way walk that was each time +to define itself as more remarkable for what they didn't +say than for what they did—this fact failed somehow +to mitigate for him a strange consciousness of exposure. +There was something deep within him that he +had absolutely shown to no one—to the companion +of these walks in particular not a bit more than he +could help; but he was none the less haunted, under +its shadow, with a dire apprehension of publicity. It +was as if he had invoked that ugliness in some stupid +good faith; and it was queer enough that on his +emergent rock, clinging to it and to Susan Shepherd, +he should figure himself as hidden from view. That +represented no doubt his belief in her power, or in her +delicate disposition to protect him. Only Kate at all +events knew—what Kate did know, and she was +also the last person interested to tell it; in spite of +which it was as if his <i>act</i>, so deeply associated with +her and never to be recalled nor recovered, was abroad +on the winds of the world. His honesty, as he viewed +it with Kate, was the very element of that menace: +to the degree that he saw at moments, as to their +final impulse or their final remedy, the need to bury +in the dark blindness of each other's arms the knowledge +of each other that they couldn't undo. +</p><p> +Save indeed that the sense in which it was in these +days a question of arms was limited, this might have +been the intimate expedient to which they were actually +resorting. It had its value, in conditions that +made everything count, that thrice over, in Battersea +Park—where Mrs. Lowder now never drove—he +had adopted the usual means, in sequestered alleys, +of holding her close to his side. She could make +absences, on her present footing, without having +too inordinately to account for them at home—which +was exactly what gave them for the first time +an appreciable margin. He supposed she could always +say in Chelsea—though he didn't press it—that +she had been across the town, in decency, for a look +at her aunt; whereas there had always been reasons +at Lancaster Gate for her not being able to plead +the look at her other relatives. It was therefore between +them a freedom of a purity as yet untasted; +which for that matter also they made in various ways +no little show of cherishing as such. They made the +show indeed in every way but the way of a large use—an +inconsequence that they almost equally gave time +to helping each other to regard as natural. He put +it to his companion that the kind of favour he now +enjoyed at Lancaster Gate, the wonderful warmth +of his reception there, cut in a manner the ground +from under their feet. He was too horribly trusted—they +had succeeded too well. He couldn't in short +make appointments with her without abusing Aunt +Maud, and he couldn't on the other hand haunt that +lady without tying his hands. Kate saw what he +meant just as he saw what she did when she admitted +that she was herself, to a degree scarce less embarrassing, +in the enjoyment of Aunt Maud's confidence. +It was special at present—she was handsomely used; +she confessed accordingly to a scruple about misapplying +her licence. Mrs. Lowder then finally had found—and +all unconsciously now—the way to baffle them. +It wasn't however that they didn't meet a little, +none the less, in the southern quarter, to point for +their common benefit the moral of their defeat. They +crossed the river; they wandered in neighbourhoods +sordid and safe; the winter was mild, so that, mounting +to the top of trams, they could rumble together +to Clapham or to Greenwich. If at the same time +their minutes had never been so counted it struck Densher +that by a singular law their tone—he scarce +knew what to call it—had never been so bland. Not +to talk of what they <i>might</i> have talked of drove them +to other ground; it was as if they used a perverse +insistence to make up what they ignored. They concealed +their pursuit of the irrelevant by the charm +of their manner; they took precautions for the courtesy +they had formerly left to come of itself; often, +when he had quitted her, he stopped short, walking +off, with the aftersense of their change. He would +have described their change—had he so far faced it +as to describe it—by their being so damned civil. +That had even, with the intimate, the familiar at the +point to which they had brought them, a touch almost +of the droll. What danger had there ever been of +their becoming rude—after each had long since made +the other so tremendously tender? Such were the +things he asked himself when he wondered what in +particular he most feared. +</p><p> +Yet all the while too the tension had its charm—such +being the interest of a creature who could bring +one back to her by such different roads. It was her +talent for life again; which found in her a difference +for the differing time. She didn't give their tradition +up; she but made of it something new. Frankly +moreover she had never been more agreeable nor in +a way—to put it prosaically—better company: +he felt almost as if he were knowing her on that defined +basis—which he even hesitated whether to +measure as reduced or as extended; as if at all events +he were admiring her as she was probably admired +by people she met "out." He hadn't in fine reckoned +that she would still have something fresh for him; +yet this was what she had—that on the top of a tram +in the Borough he felt as if he were next her at dinner. +What a person she would be if they <i>had</i> been rich—with +what a genius for the so-called great life, what +a presence for the so-called great house, what a grace +for the so-called great positions! He might regret +at once, while he was about it, that they weren't +princes or billionaires. She had treated him on their +Christmas to a softness that had struck him at the +time as of the quality of fine velvet, meant to fold +thick, but stretched a little thin; at present, however, +she gave him the impression of a contact multitudinous +as only the superficial can be. She had throughout +never a word for what went on at home. She came +out of that and she returned to it, but her nearest +reference was the look with which, each time, she +bade him good-bye. The look was her repeated prohibition: +"It's what I <i>have</i> to see and to know—so +don't touch it. That but wakes up the old evil, which +I keep still, in my way, by sitting by it. I go now—leave +me alone!—to sit by it again. The way to pity +me—if that's what you want—is to believe in me. +If we could really <i>do</i> anything it would be another +matter." +</p><p> +He watched her, when she went her way, with the +vision of what she thus a little stiffly carried. It was +confused and obscure, but how, with her head high, +it made her hold herself! He really in his own person +might at these moments have been swaying a little +aloft as one of the objects in her poised basket. It +was doubtless thanks to some such consciousness as +this that he felt the lapse of the weeks, before the day +of Kate's mounting of his stair, almost swingingly +rapid. They contained for him the contradiction that, +whereas periods of waiting are supposed in general +to keep the time slow, it was the wait, actually, that +made the pace trouble him. The secret of that anomaly, +to be plain, was that he was aware of how, while +the days melted, something rare went with them. +This something was only a thought, but a thought +precisely of such freshness and such delicacy as made +the precious, of whatever sort, most subject to the +hunger of time. The thought was all his own, and his +intimate companion was the last person he might have +shared it with. He kept it back like a favourite pang; +left it behind him, so to say, when he went out, but +came home again the sooner for the certainty of finding +it there. Then he took it out of its sacred corner +and its soft wrappings; he undid them one by one, +handling them, handling <i>it</i>, as a father, baffled and +tender, might handle a maimed child. But so it was +before him—in his dread of who else might see it. +Then he took to himself at such hours, in other words, +that he should never, never know what had been in +Milly's letter. The intention announced in it he should +but too probably know; only that would have been, +but for the depths of his spirit, the least part of it. +The part of it missed for ever was the turn she would +have given her act. This turn had possibilities that, +somehow, by wondering about them, his imagination +had extraordinarily filled out and refined. It +had made of them a revelation the loss of which was +like the sight of a priceless pearl cast before his eyes—his +pledge given not to save it—into the fathomless +sea, or rather even it was like the sacrifice of +something sentient and throbbing, something that, +for the spiritual ear, might have been audible as a +faint far wail. This was the sound he cherished +when alone in the stillness of his rooms. He sought +and guarded the stillness, so that it might prevail there +till the inevitable sounds of life, once more, comparatively +coarse and harsh, should smother and deaden +it—doubtless by the same process with which they +would officiously heal the ache in his soul that was +somehow one with it. It moreover deepened the +sacred hush that he couldn't complain. He had given +poor Kate her freedom. +</p><p> +The great and obvious thing, as soon as she stood +there on the occasion we have already named, was +that she was now in high possession of it. This +would have marked immediately the difference—had +there been nothing else to do it—between their +actual terms and their other terms, the character of +their last encounter in Venice. That had been <i>his</i> +idea, whereas her present step was her own; the few +marks they had in common were, from the first moment, +to his conscious vision, almost pathetically +plain. She was as grave now as before; she looked +around her, to hide it, as before; she pretended, as +before, in an air in which her words at the moment +itself fell flat, to an interest in the place and a curiosity +about his "things"; there was a recall in the way +in which, after she had failed a little to push up her +veil symmetrically and he had said she had better +take it off altogether, she had acceded to his suggestion +before the glass. It was just these things that +were vain; and what was real was that his fancy +figured her after the first few minutes as literally +now providing the element of reassurance which had +previously been his care. It was she, supremely, +who had the presence of mind. She made indeed for +that matter very prompt use of it. "You see I've not +hesitated this time to break your seal." +</p><p> +She had laid on the table from the moment of her +coming in the long envelope, substantially filled, +which he had sent her enclosed in another of still +ampler make. He had however not looked at it—his +belief being that he wished never again to do +so; besides which it had happened to rest with its +addressed side up. So he "saw" nothing, and it was +only into her eyes that her remark made him look, +declining any approach to the object indicated. "It's +not 'my' seal, my dear; and my intention—which +my note tried to express—was all to treat it to you +as not mine." +</p><p> +"Do you mean that it's to that extent mine +then?" +</p><p> +"Well, let us call it, if we like, theirs—that of the +good people in New York, the authors of our communication. +If the seal is broken well and good; +but we <i>might</i>, you know," he presently added, "have +sent it back to them intact and inviolate. Only accompanied," +he smiled with his heart in his mouth, +"by an absolutely kind letter." +</p><p> +Kate took it with the mere brave blink with which +a patient of courage signifies to the exploring medical +hand that the tender place is touched. He saw on +the spot that she was prepared, and with this signal +sign that she was too intelligent not to be, came a +flicker of possibilities. She was—merely to put it at +that—intelligent enough for anything. "Is it what +you're proposing we <i>should</i> do?" +</p><p> +"Ah it's too late to do it—well, ideally. Now, +with that sign that we <i>know</i>—!" +</p><p> +"But you don't know," she said very gently. +</p><p> +"I refer," he went on without noticing it, "to +what would have been the handsome way. Its being +dispatched again, with no cognisance taken but one's +assurance of the highest consideration, and the proof +of this in the state of the envelope—<i>that</i> would have +been really satisfying." +</p><p> +She thought an instant. "The state of the envelope +proving refusal, you mean, not to be based on +the insufficiency of the sum?" +</p><p> +Densher smiled again as for the play, however +whimsical, of her humour. "Well yes—something +of that sort." +</p><p> +"So that if cognisance <i>has</i> been taken—so far as +I'm concerned—it spoils the beauty?" +</p><p> +"It makes the difference that I'm disappointed +in the hope—which I confess I entertained—that +you'd bring the thing back to me as you had received +it." +</p><p> +"You didn't express that hope in your letter." +</p><p> +"I didn't want to. I wanted to leave it to yourself. +I wanted—oh yes, if that's what you wish to +ask me—to see what you'd do." +</p><p> +"You wanted to measure the possibilities of my +departure from delicacy?" +</p><p> +He continued steady now; a kind of ease—from +the presence, as in the air, of something he couldn't +yet have named—had come to him. "Well, I wanted—in +so good a case—to test you." +</p><p> +She was struck—it showed in her face—by his +expression. "It <i>is</i> a good case. I doubt whether a +better," she said with her eyes on him, "has ever been +known." +</p><p> +"The better the case then the better the test!" +</p><p> +"How do you know," she asked in reply to this, +"what I'm capable of?" +</p><p> +"I don't, my dear! Only with the seal unbroken +I should have known sooner." +</p><p> +"I see"—she took it in. "But I myself shouldn't +have known at all. And you wouldn't have known, +either, what I do know." +</p><p> +"Let me tell you at once," he returned, "that if +you've been moved to correct my ignorance I very +particularly request you not to." +</p><p> +She just hesitated. "Are you afraid of the effect +of the corrections? Can you only do it by doing it +blindly?" +</p><p> +He waited a moment. "What is it that you speak +of my doing?" +</p><p> +"Why the only thing in the world that I take you +as thinking of. Not accepting—what she has done. +Isn't there some regular name in such cases? Not +taking up the bequest." +</p><p> +"There's something you forget in it," he said after +a moment. "My asking you to join with me in doing +so." +</p><p> +Her wonder but made her softer, yet at the same +time didn't make her less firm. "How can I 'join' +in a matter with which I've nothing to do?" +</p><p> +"How? By a single word." +</p><p> +"And what word?" +</p><p> +"Your consent to my giving up." +</p><p> +"My consent has no meaning when I can't prevent +you." +</p><p> +"You can perfectly prevent me. Understand that +well," he said. +</p><p> +She seemed to face a threat in it. "You mean you +won't give up if I <i>don't</i> consent?" +</p><p> +"Yes. I do nothing." +</p><p> +"That, as I understand, is accepting." +</p><p> +Densher paused. "I do nothing formal." +</p><p> +"You won't, I suppose you mean, touch the +money." +</p><p> +"I won't touch the money." +</p><p> +It had a sound—though he had been coming to it—that +made for gravity. "Who then in such an +event <i>will?</i>" +</p><p> +"Any one who wants or who can." +</p><p> +Again a little she said nothing: she might say too +much. But by the time she spoke he had covered +ground. "How can I touch it but <i>through</i> you?" +</p><p> +"You can't. Any more," he added, "than I can +renounce it except through you." +</p><p> +"Oh ever so much less! There's nothing," she +explained, "in my power." +</p><p> +"I'm in your power," Merton Densher said. +</p><p> +"In what way?" +</p><p> +"In the way I show—and the way I've always +shown. When have I shown," he asked as with a +sudden cold impatience, "anything else? You surely +must feel—so that you needn't wish to appear to +spare me in it—how you 'have' me." +</p><p> +"It's very good of you, my dear," she nervously +laughed, "to put me so thoroughly up to it!" +</p><p> +"I put you up to nothing. I didn't even put you +up to the chance that, as I said a few moments ago, +I saw for you in forwarding that thing. Your liberty +is therefore in every way complete." +</p><p> +It had come to the point really that they showed +each other pale faces, and that all the unspoken between +them looked out of their eyes in a dim terror +of their further conflict. Something even rose between +them in one of their short silences—something +that was like an appeal from each to the other +not to be too true. Their necessity was somehow +before them, but which of them must meet it first? +"Thank you!" Kate said for his word about her +freedom, but taking for the minute no further action +on it. It was blest at least that all ironies failed them, +and during another slow moment their very sense +of it cleared the air. +</p><p> +There was an effect of this in the way he soon +went on. "You must intensely feel that it's the +thing for which we worked together." +</p><p> +She took up the remark, however, no more than if +it were commonplace; she was already again occupied +with a point of her own. "Is it absolutely true—for +if it is, you know, it's tremendously interesting—that +you haven't so much as a curiosity about +what she has done for you?" +</p><p> +"Would you like," he asked, "my formal oath +on it?" +</p><p> +"No—but I don't understand. It seems to me +in your place—!" +</p><p> +"Ah," he couldn't help breaking in, "what do +you know of my place? Pardon me," he at once +added; "my preference is the one I express." +</p><p> +She had in an instant nevertheless a curious thought. +"But won't the facts be published?" +</p><p> +"'Published'?"—he winced. +</p><p> +"I mean won't you see them in the papers?" +</p><p> +"Ah never! I shall know how to escape that." +</p><p> +It seemed to settle the subject, but she had the next +minute another insistence. "Your desire is to escape +everything?" +</p><p> +"Everything." +</p><p> +"And do you need no more definite sense of what +it is you ask me to help you to renounce?" +</p><p> +"My sense is sufficient without being definite. +I'm willing to believe that the amount of money's +not small." +</p><p> +"Ah there you are!" she exclaimed. +</p><p> +"If she was to leave me a remembrance," he quietly +pursued, "it would inevitably not be meagre." +</p><p> +Kate waited as for how to say it. "It's worthy +of her. It's what she was herself—if you remember +what we once said <i>that</i> was." +</p><p> +He hesitated—as if there had been many things. +But he remembered one of them. "Stupendous?" +</p><p> +"Stupendous." A faint smile for it—ever so +small—had flickered in her face, but had vanished +before the omen of tears, a little less uncertain, had +shown themselves in his own. His eyes filled—but +that made her continue. She continued gently. "I +think that what it really is must be that you're afraid. +I mean," she explained, "that you're afraid of <i>all</i> the +truth. If you're in love with her without it, what +indeed can you be more? And you're afraid—it's +wonderful!—to be in love with her." +</p><p> +"I never was in love with her," said Densher. +</p><p> +She took it, but after a little she met it. "I believe +that now—for the time she lived. I believe it +at least for the time you were there. But your change +came—as it might well—the day you last saw her; +she died for you then that you might understand her. +From that hour you <i>did</i>." With which Kate slowly +rose. "And I do now. She did it <i>for</i> us." Densher +rose to face her, and she went on with her thought. +"I used to call her, in my stupidity—for want of +anything better—a dove. Well she stretched out her +wings, and it was to <i>that</i> they reached. They cover us." +</p><p> +"They cover us," Densher said. +</p><p> +"That's what I give you," Kate gravely wound +up. "That's what I've done for you." +</p><p> +His look at her had a slow strangeness that had +dried, on the moment, his tears. "Do I understand +then—?" +</p><p> +"That I do consent?" She gravely shook her +head. "No—for I see. You'll marry me without +the money; you won't marry me with it. If I don't +consent <i>you</i> don't." +</p><p> +"You lose me?" He showed, though naming it +frankly, a sort of awe of her high grasp. "Well, you +lose nothing else. I make over to you every penny." +</p><p> +Prompt was his own clearness, but she had no +smile this time to spare. "Precisely—so that I must +choose." +</p><p> +"You must choose." +</p><p> +Strange it was for him then that she stood in his +own rooms doing it, while, with an intensity now beyond +any that had ever made his breath come slow, +he waited for her act. "There's but one thing that +can save you from my choice." +</p><p> +"From your choice of my surrender to you?" +</p><p> +"Yes"—and she gave a nod at the long envelope +on the table—"your surrender of that." +</p><p> +"What is it then?" +</p><p> +"Your word of honour that you're not in love +with her memory." +</p><p> +"Oh—her memory!" +</p><p> +"Ah"—she made a high gesture—"don't speak +of it as if you couldn't be. I could in your place; +and you're one for whom it will do. Her memory's +your love. You <i>want</i> no other." +</p><p> +He heard her out in stillness, watching her face +but not moving. Then he only said: "I'll marry you, +mind you, in an hour." +</p><p> +"As we were?" +</p><p> +"As we were." +</p><p> +But she turned to the door, and her headshake was +now the end. "We shall never be again as we were!" +</p> +<br> +<br> +<h4 align="center">THE END</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h4 align="center">The Riverside Press</h4> +<h4 align="center">CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS</h4> +<h4 align="center">U . S . A</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Wings of the Dove, Volume II, by Henry James + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WINGS OF THE DOVE, VOLUME II *** + +***** This file should be named 30059-h.htm or 30059-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/0/5/30059/ + +Produced by James Adcock. 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