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.'
'I should hope not! What do you think I want to do?'
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 Sevres, 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
'She doesn't want to play with
'What is it then,' the young man returned—'from the moment it isn't her blessing and a cheque?'
Kate was complete. 'It's simply her absence of smallness. There is something in her above trifles. She
'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.
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.'
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?'
'Certainly—to see her. It's she, really,' his companion smiled, 'who's in love with you.'
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.'
She hesitated. 'I don't say every one.'
'You said just now Miss Theale.'
'I said she liked you—yes.'
'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
'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!'
Densher did justice to both considerations. 'Yes, I can't very well tell her all.'
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.'
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
'Of course it's a game. But she'll never suppose you give me up—or I give
'Then if she has to see us as obstinate and constant,' Densher asked, 'what good does it do?'
Kate was for a moment checked. 'What good does what—?'
'Does my pleasing her—does anything. I
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
Densher stared—she was wondrous all round. 'And what sort of a basis does it make for my seeing
'Oh I don't mind!' Kate smiled.