The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2

dear, you're better than nothing.' To-night, furthermore, it came up for Milly that Aunt Maud had something particular in mind. Mrs. Stringham, before adjourning with her, had gone off for some shawl or other accessory, and Kate, as if a little impatient for their withdrawal, had wandered out to the balcony, where she hovered, for the time, unseen, though with scarce more to look at than the dim London stars and the cruder glow, up the street, on a corner, of a small public-house, in front of which a fagged cab-horse was thrown into relief. Mrs. Lowder made use of the moment: Milly felt as soon as she had spoken that what she was doing was somehow for use.

'Dear Susan tells me that you saw, in America, Mr. Densher—whom I've never till now, as you may have noticed, asked you about. But do you mind at last, in connection with him, doing something for me?' She had lowered her fine voice to a depth, though speaking with all her rich glibness; and Milly, after a small sharpness of surprise, was already guessing the sense of her appeal. 'Will you name him, in any way you like, to her'—and Aunt Maud gave a nod at the window; 'so that you may perhaps find out whether he's back?'

Ever so many things, for Milly, fell into line at this; it was a wonder, she afterwards thought, that she could be conscious of so many at once. She smiled hard, however, for them all. 'But I don't know that it's important to me to 'find out.'' The array of things was further swollen, however, even as she said this, by its striking her as too much to say. She therefore tried as quickly to say less. 'Except you mean, of course, that it's important to you.' She fancied Aunt Maud was looking at her almost as hard as she was herself smiling, and that gave her another impulse. 'You know I never have yet named him to her; so that if I should break out now——'

'Well?'—Mrs. Lowder waited.

'Why, she may wonder what I've been making a mystery of. She hasn't mentioned him, you know,' Milly went on, 'herself.'

'No'—her friend a little heavily weighed it—'she wouldn't. So it's she, you see then, who has made the mystery.'

Yes, Milly but wanted to see; only there was so much. 'There has been of course no particular reason.' Yet that indeed was neither here nor there. 'Do you think,' she asked, 'he is back?'

'It will be about his time, I gather, and rather a comfort to me definitely to know.'

'Then can't you ask her yourself?'

'Ah, we never speak of him!'

It helped Milly for the moment to the convenience of a puzzled pause. 'Do you mean he's an acquaintance of whom you disapprove for her?'

Aunt Maud, as well, just hung fire. 'I disapprove of her for the poor young man. She doesn't care for him.'

'And he cares so much——?'

'Too much, too much. And my fear is,' said Mrs. Lowder, 'that he privately besets her. She keeps it to herself, but I don't want her worried. Neither, in truth,' she both generously and confidentially concluded, 'do I want him.'

Milly showed all her own effort to meet the case. 'But what can I do?'

'You can find out where they are. If I myself try,' Mrs. Lowder explained, 'I shall appear to treat them as if I supposed them deceiving me.'

'And you don't. You don't,' Milly mused for her, 'suppose them deceiving you.'

'Well,' said Aunt Maud, whose fine onyx eyes failed to blink, even though Milly's questions might have been taken as drawing her rather further than she had originally meant to go—'well, Kate is thoroughly aware of my views for her, and that I take her being with me, at present, in the way she is with me, if you know what I mean, as a loyal assent to them. Therefore as my views don't happen to provide a place, at all, for Mr. Densher, much, in a manner, as I like him'—therefore, therefore in short she had been prompted to this step, though she completed her sense, but sketchily, with the rattle of her large fan.

It assisted them perhaps, however, for the moment, that Milly was able to pick out of her sense what might serve as the clearest part of it. 'You do like him then?'

'Oh dear, yes. Don't you?'

Milly hesitated, for the question was somehow as the sudden point of something sharp on a nerve that winced. She just caught her breath, but she had ground for joy afterwards, she felt, in not really having failed to choose with quickness sufficient, out of fifteen possible answers, the one that would best serve her. She was then almost proud, as well, that she had cheerfully smiled. 'I did—three times—in New York.' So came and went for her, in these simple words, the speech that was to figure for her, later on, that night, as the one she had ever uttered that cost her most. She was to lie awake, at all events, half the night, for the gladness of not having taken any line so really inferior as the denial of a happy impression.

For Mrs. Lowder also, moreover, her simple words were the right ones; they were at any rate, that lady's laugh showed, in the natural note of the racy. 'You dear American thing! But people may be very good, and yet not good for what one wants.'

'Yes,' the girl assented, 'even I suppose when what one wants is something very good.'

'Oh, my child, it would take too long just now to tell you all I want! I want everything at once and together—and ever so much for you too, you know. But you've seen us,' Aunt Maud continued; 'you'll have made out.'

'Ah,' said Milly, 'I don't make out'; for again—it came that way in rushes—she felt an obscurity in things. 'Why, if our friend here doesn't like him——'

'Should I conceive her interested in keeping things from me?' Mrs. Lowder did justice to the question. 'My dear, how can you ask? Put yourself in her place. She meets me, but on her terms. Proud young women are proud young women. And proud old ones are—well, what I am. Fond of you as we both are, you can help us.'

Milly tried to be inspired. 'Does it come back then to my asking her straight?'

At this, however, finally, Aunt Maud threw her up. 'Oh, if you've so many reasons not——!'