Wings of the Dove (Barnes & Noble Classi - Henry James [148]
“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.”
“I mean for you.”
“That’s what I mean too,” Kate smiled. “There he is. Now you can judge.”
“Judge of what?”
“Judge of him.”
“Why should I judge of him?” Densher asked. “I’ve nothing to do with him.”
“Then why do you ask about him?”
“To judge of you—which is different.”
Kate seemed for a little to look at the difference. “To take the measure, do you mean, of my danger?”
He hesitated; then he said: “I’m thinking, I dare say, of Miss Theale’s. How does your aunt reconcile his interest in her—?”
“With his interest in me?”
“With her own interest in you,” Densher said while she reflected. “If that interest—Mrs. Lowder’s—takes the form of Lord Mark, hasn’t he rather to look out for the forms he takes?”
Kate seemed interested in the question, but “Oh he takes them easily,” she answered. “The beauty is that she doesn’t trust him. ”
“That Milly doesn’t?”
“Yes—Milly either. But I mean Aunt Maud. Not really.”
Densher gave it his wonder. “Takes him to her heart and yet thinks he cheats?”
“Yes,” said Kate—“that’s the way people are. What they think of their enemies, goodness knows, is bad enough; but I’m still more struck with what they think of their friends. Milly’s own state of mind, however,” she went on, “is lucky. That’s Aunt Maud’s security, though she doesn’t yet fully recognise it—besides being Milly’s own.”
“You conceive it a real escape then not to care for him?”
She shook her head in beautiful grave deprecation. “You oughtn’t to make me say too much. But I’m glad I don’t.”
“Don’t say too much?”
“Don’t care for Lord Mark.”
“Oh!” Densher answered with a sound like his lordship’s own. To which he added: “You absolutely hold that that poor girl doesn’t?”
“Ah you know what I hold about that poor girl!” It had made her again impatient.
Yet he stuck a minute to the subject. “You scarcely call him, I suppose, one of the dukes.”
“Mercy, no—far from it. He’s not, compared with other possibilities, ‘in’ it. Milly, it’s true,” she said, to be exact, “has no natural sense of social values, doesn’t in the least understand our differences or know who’s who or what’s what.”
“I see. That,” Densher laughed, “is her reason for liking me.”
“Precisely. She doesn’t resemble me,” said Kate, “who at least know what I lose.”
Well, it had all risen for Densher to a considerable interest. “And Aunt Maud—why shouldn’t she know? I mean that your friend there isn’t really anything. Does she suppose him of ducal value?”
“Scarcely; save in the sense of being uncle to a duke. That’s undeniably something. He’s the best moreover we can get.”
“Oh, oh!” said Densher; and his doubt was not all derisive.
“It isn’t Lord Mark’s grandeur,” she went on without heeding this; “because perhaps in the line of that alone—as he has no money