The Wings of the Dove, Volume 2

'I don't know. Of somebody—of something. He wants, he says, to be quiet. But his quietness is awful.'

She suffered, but he couldn't not question. 'What does he do?'

It made Kate herself hesitate. 'He cries.'

Again for a moment he hung fire, but he risked it. 'What has he done?'

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.'

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.

But her eyes only—though he held it out—met the offer. 'Why you've not broken the seal!'

'If I had broken the seal—exactly—I should know what's within. It's for you to break the seal that I bring it.'

She looked—still not touching the thing—inordinately grave. 'To break the seal of something to you from her?'

'Ah precisely because it's from her. I'll abide by whatever you think of it.'

'I don't understand,' said Kate. 'What do you yourself think?' And then as he didn't answer: 'It seems to me I think you know. You have your instinct. You don't need to read. It's the proof.'

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.'

'For Christmas Eve?'

'For Christmas Eve.'

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 be so timed?'

Only meeting her eyes while he thought, he again didn't reply. 'What do you mean by the proof?'

'Why of the beauty with which you've been loved. But I won't,' she said, 'break your seal.'

'You positively decline?'

'Positively. Never.' To which she added oddly: 'I know without.'

He had another pause. 'And what is it you know?'

'That she announces to you she has made you rich.'

His pause this time was longer. 'Left me her fortune?'

'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.'

'Did she tell you?' Densher asked.

'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.'

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 you one. I've wanted to let you see—and in preference even to myself—something I feel as sacred.'

She frowned a little. 'I don't understand.'

'I've asked myself for a tribute, for a sacrifice by which I can peculiarly recognise—'

'Peculiarly recognise what?' she demanded as he dropped.

'The admirable nature of your own sacrifice. You were capable in Venice of an act of splendid generosity.'

'And the privilege you offer me with that document is my reward?'

He made a movement. 'It's all I can do as a symbol of my attitude.'

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.'

'So it is then you meet me?'

She bent her eyes hard a moment to the letter, from which her hand still stayed itself. 'You absolutely desire me to take it?'

'I absolutely desire you to take it.'

'To do what I like with it?'

'Short of course of making known its terms. It must remain—pardon my making the point—between you and me.'

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.'

'Oh I know!' said Merton Densher.