The Wings of the Dove, Volume 2

'And then what?'

'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.'

'Thank you!' Densher laughed. 'It's rather good then for yourself too that you're as strong as the sea.'

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.'

'But you don't—since here you are, in spite of all you say, in the midst of it.'

'Ah I'm only watching—!'

'And putting me forward in your place? Thank you!'

'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.'

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?'

'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.'

'The doctors are after her then?'

'She's after them—it's the same thing. I think I'm free to say it now—she sees Sir Luke Strett.'

It made him quickly wince. 'Ah fifty thousand knives!' Then after an instant: 'One seems to guess.'

Yes, but she waved it away. 'Don't guess. Only do as I tell you.'

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.'

'Ah but you admit yourself that she doesn't affect you as sick. You understand moreover just how much—and just how little.'

'It's amazing,' he presently answered, 'what you think I understand.'

'Well, if you've brought me to it, my dear,' she returned, 'that has been your way of breaking me in. Besides which, so far as making up to her goes, plenty of others will.'

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.'

'But so are you, my dear!'

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!'

'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.'

'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.

'Oh and Miss Theale I suppose?—as I seemed to hear outside, from below, Mrs. Stringham's unmistakeable voice.'

'Yes, but Mrs. Stringham's alone. Milly's unwell,' the girl explained, 'and was compelled to disappoint us.'

'Ah 'disappoint'—rather!' And, lingering a little, he kept his eyes on Densher. 'She isn't really bad, I trust?'

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.'

'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: 'My fears would want calming. We must take great care of her. This way?'

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 he who's your aunt's man?'

'Oh immensely.'