The Wings of the Dove, Volume 2

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.'

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.

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 her; 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 would have done it, though Kate wasn't at all, in the same sense as Milly, spontaneous. And then in addition Kate had 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.

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.

'And you're going with her?' Kate asked.

'Yes—with your approval; which I've taken, as you see, for granted.'

'Oh,' she laughed, 'my approval's complete!' She was thoroughly consistent and handsome about it.

'What I mean is of course,' he went on—for he was sensibly affected by her gaiety—'at your so lively instigation.'

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?'

'Not to see her—after coming?'

'Well, with you in the field—! I came for news of her, but she must be all right. If she is—'

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.'

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?'

'She assures me she's in perfect health.'

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.'

'For what then?'

'Well—for nervousness.'

'Nervousness about what?'

'Oh you know!' She spoke with a hint of impatience, smiling however the next moment. 'I've told you that.'

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 her?'

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 her, 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.'