He had the place for a long time—it seemed to him a quarter of an hour—to himself; and while Aunt Maud kept him and kept him, while observation and reflection crowded on him, he asked himself what was to be expected of a person who could treat one like that. The visit, the hour were of her own proposing, so that her delay, no doubt, was but part of a general plan of putting him to inconvenience. As he walked to and fro, however, taking in the message of her massive, florid furniture, the immense expression of her signs and symbols, he had as little doubt of the inconvenience he was prepared to suffer. He found himself even facing the thought that he had nothing to fall back on, and that that was as great a humiliation11 in a good cause as a proud man could desire. It had not yet been so distinct to him that he made no show—literally12 not the smallest; so complete a show seemed made there all about him; so almost abnormally affirmative, so aggressively erect13, were the huge, heavy objects that syllabled14 his hostess story. "When all's said and done, you know, she's colossally15 vulgar"—he had once all but said that of Mrs. Lowder to her niece; only just keeping it back at the last, keeping it to himself with all its danger about it. It mattered because it bore so directly, and he at all events quite felt it a thing that Kate herself would some day bring out to him. It bore directly at present, and really all the more that somehow, strangely, it didn't in the least imply that Aunt Maud was dull or stale. She was vulgar with freshness, almost with beauty, since there was beauty, to a degree, in the play of so big and bold a temperament16. She was in fine quite the largest possible quantity to deal with; and he was in the cage of the lioness without his whip—the whip, in a word, of a supply of proper retorts. He had no retort but that he loved the girl—which in such a house as that was painfully cheap. Kate had mentioned to him more than once that her aunt was Passionate18, speaking of it as a kind of offset19 and uttering it as with a capital P, marking it as something that he might, that he in fact ought to, turn about in some way to their advantage. He wondered at this hour to what advantage he could turn it; but the case grew less simple the longer he waited. Decidedly there was something he hadn't enough of. He stood as one fast.
His slow march to and fro seemed to give him the very measure; as he paced and paced the distance it became the desert of his poverty; at the sight of which expanse moreover he could pretend to himself as little as before that the desert looked redeemable20. Lancaster Gate looked rich—that was all the effect; which it was unthinkable that any state of his own should ever remotely resemble. He read more vividly21, more critically, as has been hinted, the appearances about him; and they did nothing so much as make him wonder at his aesthetic22 reaction. He hadn't known—and in spite of Kate's repeated reference to her own rebellions of taste—that he should "mind" so much how an independent lady might decorate her house. It was the language of the house itself that spoke23 to him, writing out for him, with surpassing breadth and freedom, the associations and conceptions, the ideals and possibilities of the mistress. Never, he flattered himself, had he seen anything so gregariously24 ugly—operatively, ominously25 so cruel. He was glad to have found this last name for the whole character; "cruel" somehow played into the subject for an article—that his impression put straight into his mind. He would write about the heavy horrors that could still flourish, that lifted their undiminished heads, in an age so proud of its short way with false gods; and it would be funny if what he should have got from Mrs. Lowder were to prove, after all, but a small amount of copy. Yet the great thing, really the dark thing, was that, even while he thought of the quick column he might add up, he felt it less easy to laugh at the heavy horrors than to quail26 before them. He couldn't describe and dismiss them collectively, call them either Mid-Victorian or Early; not being at all sure they were rangeable under one rubric. It was only manifest they were splendid and were furthermore conclusively27 British. They constituted an order and they abounded28 in rare material—precious woods, metals, stuffs, stones. He had never dreamed of anything so fringed and scalloped, so buttoned and corded, drawn29 everywhere so tight, and curled everywhere so thick. He had never dreamed of so much gilt30 and glass, so much satin and plush, so much rosewood and marble and malachite. But it was, above all, the solid forms, the wasted finish, the misguided cost, the general attestation31 of morality and money, a good conscience and a big balance. These things finally represented for him a portentous32 negation33 of his own world of thought—of which, for that matter, in the presence of them, he became as for the first time hopelessly aware. They revealed it to him by their merciless difference. His interview with Aunt Maud, none the less, took by no means the turn he had expected. Passionate though her nature, no doubt Mrs. Lowder, on this occasion, neither threatened nor appealed. Her arms of aggression34, her weapons of defence, were presumably close at hand, but she left them untouched and unmentioned, and was in fact so bland35 that he properly perceived only afterwards how adroit36 she had been. He properly perceived something else as well, which complicated his case; he shouldn't have known what to call it if he hadn't called it her really imprudent good-nature. Her blandness37, in other words, was not mere38 policy—he wasn't dangerous enough for policy; it was the result, he could see, of her fairly liking him a little. From the moment she did that she herself became more interesting; and who knew what might happen should he take to liking her? Well, it was a risk he naturally must face. She fought him, at any rate, but with one hand, with a few loose grains of stray powder. He recognised at the end of ten minutes, and even without her explaining it, that if she had made him wait it had not been to wound him; they had by that time almost directly met on the fact of her intention. She had wanted him to think for himself of what she proposed to say to him—not having otherwise announced it; wanted to let it come home to him on the spot, as she had shrewdly believed it would. Her first question, on appearing, had practically been as to whether he hadn't taken her hint, and this inquiry39 assumed so many things that it made discussion, immediately, frank and large. He knew, with the question put, that the hint was just what he had taken; knew that she had made him quickly forgive her the display of her power; knew that if he didn't take care he should understand her, and the strength of her purpose, to say nothing of that of her imagination, nothing of the length of her purse, only too well. Yet he pulled himself up with the thought, too, that he was not going to be afraid of understanding her; he was just going to understand and understand without detriment40 to the feeblest, even, of his passions. The play of one's mind let one in, at the best, dreadfully, in action, in the need of action, where simplicity41 was all; but when one couldn't prevent it the thing was to make it complete. There would never be mistakes but for the original fun of mistakes. What he must use his fatal intelligence for was to resist. Mrs. Lowder, meanwhile, might use it for whatever she liked.
It was after she had begun her statement of her own idea about Kate that he began, on his side, to reflect that—with her manner of offering it as really sufficient if he would take the trouble to embrace—it she couldn't half hate him. That was all, positively42, she seemed to show herself for the time as attempting; clearly, if she did her intention justice, she would have nothing more disagreeable to do. "If I hadn't been ready to go very much further, you understand, I wouldn't have gone so far. I don't care what you repeat to her—the more you repeat to her, perhaps the better; and, at any rate, there's nothing she doesn't already know. I don't say it for her; I say it for you—when I want to reach my niece I know how to do it straight." So Aunt Maud delivered herself—as with homely43 benevolence44, in the simplest, but the clearest terms; virtually conveying that, though a word to the wise was, doubtless, in spite of the advantage, not always enough, a word to the good could never fail to be. The sense our young man read into her words was that she liked him because he was good—was really, by her measure, good enough: good enough, that is, to give up her niece for her and go his way in peace. But was he good enough—by his own measure? He fairly wondered, while she more fully17 expressed herself, if it might be his doom45 to prove so. "She's the finest possible creature—of course you flatter yourself that you know it. But I know it, quite as well as you possibly can—by which I mean a good deal better yet; and the tune46 to which I'm ready to prove my faith compares favourably47 enough, I think, with anything you can do. I don't say it because she's my niece—that's nothing to me: I might have had fifty nieces, and I wouldn't have brought one of them to this place if I hadn't found her to my taste. I don't say I wouldn't have done something else, but I wouldn't have put up with her presence. Kate's presence, by good fortune, I marked early; Kate's presence—unluckily for you—is everything I could possibly wish; Kate's presence is, in short, as fine as you know, and I've been keeping it for the comfort of my declining years. I've watched it long; I've been saving it up and letting it, as you say of investments, appreciate, and you may judge whether, now it has begun to pay so, I'm likely to consent to treat for it with any but a high bidder48. I can do the best with her, and I've my idea of the best."
"Oh, I quite conceive," said Densher, "that your idea of the best isn't me."
It was an oddity of Mrs. Lowder's that her face in speech was like a lighted window at night, but that silence immediately drew the curtain. The occasion for reply allowed by her silence was never easy to take; yet she was still less easy to interrupt. The great glaze49 of her surface, at all events, gave her visitor no present help. "I didn't ask you to come to hear what it isn't—I asked you to come to hear what it is."
"Of course," Densher laughed, "it's very great indeed."
His hostess went on as if his contribution to the subject were barely relevant. "I want to see her high, high up—high up and in the light."
She gave him so, on this, the mere effect of the drawn blind that it quite forced him, at first, into the sense, possibly just, of having affected51 her as flip52 pant, perhaps even as low. He had been looked at so, in blighted53 moments of presumptuous54 youth, by big cold public men, but never, so far as he could recall, by any private lady. More than anything yet it gave him the measure of his companion's subtlety55, and thereby56 of Kate's possible career. "Don't be too impossible!"—he feared from his friend, for a moment, some such answer as that; and then felt, as she spoke otherwise, as if she were letting him off easily. "I want her to marry a great man." That was all; but, more and more, it was enough; and if it hadn't been her next words would have made it so. "And I think of her what I think. There you are."
They sat for a little face to face upon it, and he was conscious of something deeper still, of something she wished him to understand if he only would. To that extent she did appeal—appealed to the intelligence she desired to show she believed him to possess. He was meanwhile, at all events, not the man wholly to fail of comprehension. "Of course I'm aware how little I can answer to any fond, proud dream. You've a view—a magnificent one; into which I perfectly57 enter. I thoroughly58 understand what I'm not, and I'm much obliged to you for not reminding me of it in any rougher way." She said nothing—she kept that up; it might even have been to let him go further, if he was capable of it, in the way of poorness of spirit. It was one of those cases in which a man couldn't show, if he showed at all, save for poor; unless indeed he preferred to show for asinine59. It was the plain truth: he was—on Mrs. Lowder's basis, the only one in question—a very small quantity, and he did know, damnably, what made quantities large. He desired to be perfectly simple; yet in the midst of that effort a deeper apprehension60 throbbed61. Aunt Maud clearly conveyed it, though he couldn't later on have said how. "You don't really matter, I believe, so much as you think, and I'm not going to make you a martyr62 by banishing63 you. Your performances with Kate in the Park are ridiculous so far as they're meant as consideration for me; and I had much rather see you myself—since you're, in your way, my dear young man, delightful64—and arrange with you, count with you, as I easily, as I perfectly should. Do you suppose me so stupid as to quarrel with you if it's not really necessary? It won't—it would be too absurd!—be necessary. I can bite your head off any day, any day I really open my mouth; and I'm dealing65 with you now, see—and successfully judge—without opening it. I do things handsomely all round—I place you in the presence of the plan with which, from the moment it's a case of taking you seriously, you're incompatible66. Come then as near it as you like, walk all round it—don't be afraid you'll hurt it!—and live on with it before you."
He afterwards felt that if she hadn't absolutely phrased all this it was because she so soon made him out as going with her far enough. He was so pleasantly affected by her asking no promise of him, her not proposing he should pay for her indulgence by his word of honour not to interfere67, that he gave her a kind of general assurance of esteem68. Immediately afterwards, then, he spoke of these things to Kate, and what then came back to him first of all was the way he had said to her—he mentioned it to the girl—very much as one of a pair of lovers says in a rupture69 by mutual70 consent: "I hope immensely, of course, that you'll always regard me as a friend." This had perhaps been going far—he submitted it all to Kate; but really there had been so much in it that it was to be looked at, as they might say, wholly in its own light. Other things than those we have presented had come up before the close of his scene with Aunt Maud, but this matter of her not treating him as a peril71 of the first order easily predominated. There was moreover plenty to talk about on the occasion of his subsequent passage with our young woman, it having been put to him abruptly72, the night before, that he might give himself a lift and do his newspaper a service—so flatteringly was the case expressed—by going, for fifteen or twenty weeks, to America. The idea of a series of letters from the United States from the strictly73 social point of view had for some time been nursed in the inner sanctuary74 at whose door he sat, and the moment was now deemed happy for letting it loose. The imprisoned75 thought had, in a word, on the opening of the door, flown straight out into Densher's face, or perched at least on his shoulder, making him look up in surprise from his mere inky office-table. His account of the matter to Kate was that he couldn't refuse—not being in a position, as yet, to refuse anything; but that his being chosen for such an errand confounded his sense of proportion. He was definite as to his scarce knowing how to measure the honour, which struck him as equivocal; he had not quite supposed himself the man for the class of job. This confused consciousness, he intimated, he had promptly76 enough betrayed to his manager; with the effect, however, of seeing the question surprisingly clear up. What it came to was that the sort of twaddle that was not in his chords was, unexpectedly, just what they happened this time not to want. They wanted his letters, for queer reasons, about as good as he could let them come; he was to play his own little tune and not be afraid; that was the whole point.
It would have been the whole, that is, had there not been a sharper one still in the circumstance that he was to start at once. His mission, as they called it at the office, would probably be over by the end of June, which was desirable; but to bring that about he must now not lose a week; his inquiries77, he understood, were to cover the whole ground, and there were reasons of State—reasons operating at the seat of empire in Fleet Street—why the nail should be struck on the head. Densher made no secret to Kate of his having asked for a day to decide; and his account of that matter was that he felt he owed it to her to speak to her first. She assured him on this that nothing so much as that scruple78 had yet shown her how they were bound together; she was clearly proud of his letting a thing of such importance depend on her; but she was clearer still as to his instant duty. She rejoiced in his prospect79 and urged him to his task; she should miss him intensely—of course she should miss him; but she made so little of it that she spoke with jubilation80 of what he would see and would do. She made so much of this last quantity that he laughed at her innocence81, though also with scarce the heart to give her the real size of his drop in the daily bucket. He was struck at the same time with her happy grasp of what had really occurred in Fleet Street—all the more that it was his own final reading. He was to pull the subject up—that was just what they wanted; and it would take more than all the United States together, visit them each as he might, to let him down. It was just because he didn't nose about and wasn't the usual gossipmonger that they had picked him out; it was a branch of their correspondence with which they evidently wished a new tone associated, such a tone as, from now on, it would have always to take from his example.
"How you ought indeed, when you understand so well, to be a journalist's wife!" Densher exclaimed in admiration82, even while she struck him as fairly hurrying him off.
But she was almost impatient of the praise. "What do you expect one not to understand when one cares for you?"
"Ah then, I'll put it otherwise and say 'How much you care for me!'"
"Yes," she assented83; "it fairly redeems84 my stupidity. I shall, with a chance to show it," she added, "have some imagination for you."
She spoke of the future this time as so little contingent85, that he felt a queerness of conscience in making her the report that he presently arrived at on what had passed for him with the real arbiter86 of their destiny. The way for that had been blocked a little by his news from Fleet Street; but in the crucible87 of their happy discussion this element soon melted into the other, and in the mixture that ensued the parts were not to be distinguished88. The young man moreover, before taking his leave, was to see why Kate had just spoken of the future as if they now really possessed89 it, and was to come to the vision by a devious90 way that deepened the final cheer. Their faces were turned to the illumined quarter as soon as he had answered her question in respect to the appearance of their being able to play a waiting game with success. It was for the possibility of that appearance that she had, a few days before, so earnestly pressed him to see her aunt; and if after his hour with that lady it had not struck Densher that he had seen her to the happiest purpose the poor facts flushed with a better meaning as Kate, one by one, took them up.
"If she consents to your coming, why isn't that everything?"
"It is everything; everything she thinks it. It's the probability—I mean as Mrs. Lowder measures probability—that I may be prevented from becoming a complication for her by some arrangement, any arrangement, through which you shall see me often and easily. She's sure of my want of money, and that gives her time. She believes in my having a certain amount of delicacy91, in my wishing to better my state before I put the pistol to your head in respect to sharing it. The time that will take figures for her as the time that will help her if she doesn't spoil her chance by treating me badly. She doesn't at all wish moreover," Densher went on, "to treat me badly, for I believe, upon my honour, funny as it may sound to you, that she personally rather likes me, and that if you weren't in question I might almost become her pet young man. She doesn't disparage92 intellect and culture—quite the contrary; she wants them to adorn93 her board and be named in her programme; and I'm sure it has sometimes cost her a real pang94 that I should be so desirable, at once, and so impossible." He paused a moment, and his companion then saw that a strange smile was in his face—a smile as strange even as the adjunct, in her own, of this informing vision. "I quite suspect her of believing that, if the truth were known, she likes me literally better than—deep down—you yourself do: wherefore she does me the honour to think that I may be safely left to kill my own cause. There, as I say, comes in her margin95. I'm not the sort of stuff of romance that wears, that washes, that survives use, that resists familiarity. Once in any degree admit that, and your pride and prejudice will take care of the rest! the pride fed full, meanwhile, by the system she means to practise with you, and the prejudice excited by the comparison she'll enable you to make, from which I shall come off badly. She likes me, but she'll never like me so much as when she succeeded a little better in making me look wretched. For then you'll like me less."
Kate showed for this evocation96 a due interest, but no alarm; and it was a little as if to pay his tender cynicism back in kind that she after an instant replied: "I see, I see; what an immense affair she must think me! One was aware, but you deepen the impression."
"I think you'll make no mistake," said Densher, "in letting it go as deep as it will."
He had given her indeed, she made no scruple of showing, plenty to consider. "Her facing the music, her making you boldly as welcome as you say—that's an awfully97 big theory, you know, and worthy98 of all the other big things that, in one's acquaintance with people, give her a place so apart."
"Oh, she's grand," the young man conceded; "she's on the scale, altogether, of the car of Juggernaut which was a kind of image that came to me yesterday while I waited for her at Lancaster Gate. The things in your drawing-room there were like the forms of the strange idols99, the mystic excrescences, with which one may suppose the front of the car to bristle100."
"Yes, aren't they?" the girl returned; and they had, over all that aspect of their wonderful lady, one of those deep and free interchanges that made everything but confidence a false note for them. There were complications, there were questions; but they were so much more together than they were anything else. Kate uttered for a while no word of refutation of Aunt Maud's "big" diplomacy101, and they left it there, as they would have left any other fine product, for a monument to her powers. But, Densher related further, he had had in other respects too the car of Juggernaut to face; he omitted nothing from his account of his visit, least of all the way Aunt Maud had frankly102 at last—though indeed only under artful pressure—fallen foul103 of his very type, his want of the right marks, his foreign accidents, his queer antecedents. She had told him he was but half a Briton, which, he granted Kate, would have been dreadful if he hadn't so let himself in for it.
"I was really curious, you see," he explained, "to find out from her what sort of queer creature, what sort of social anomaly, in the light of such conventions as hers, such an education as mine makes one pass for."
Kate said nothing for a little; but then, "Why should you care?" she asked.
"Oh," he laughed, "I like her so much; and then, for a man of my trade, her views, her spirit, are essentially104 a thing to get hold of; they belong to the great public mind that we meet at every turn and that we must keep setting up 'codes' with. Besides," he added, "I want to please her personally."
"Ah, yes, we must please her personally!" his companion echoed; and the words may represent all their definite recognition, at the time, of Densher's politic105 gain. They had in fact between this and his start for New York many matters to handle, and the question he now touched upon came up for Kate above all. She looked at him as if he had really told her aunt more of his immediate personal story than he had ever told herself. That, if it were so, was an accident, and it put him, for half an hour, on as much of the picture of his early years abroad, his migratory106 parents, his Swiss schools, his German university, as she had easy attention for. A man, he intimated, a man of their world, would have spotted107 him straight as to many of these points; a man of their world, so far as they had a world, would have been through the English mill. But it was none the less charming to make his confession108 to a woman; women had, in fact, for such differences, so much more imagination. Kate showed at present all his case could require; when she had had it from beginning to end she declared that she now made out more than ever yet of what she loved him for. She had herself, as a child, lived with some continuity in the world across the Channel, coming home again still a child; and had participated after that, in her teens, in her mother's brief but repeated retreats to Dresden, to Florence, to Biarritz, weak and expensive attempts at economy from which there stuck to her—though in general coldly expressed, through the instinctive109 avoidance of cheap raptures—the religion of foreign things. When it was revealed to her how many more foreign things were in Merton Densher than he had hitherto taken the trouble to catalogue, she almost faced him as if he were a map of the continent or a handsome present of a delightful new "Murray." He hadn't meant to swagger, he had rather meant to plead, though with Mrs. Lowder he had meant also a little to explain. His father had been, in strange countries, in twenty settlements of the English, British chaplain, resident or occasional, and had had for years the unusual luck of never wanting a billet. His career abroad had therefore been unbroken, and, as his stipend110 had never been great, he had educated his children at the smallest cost, in the schools nearest; which was also a saving of railway fares. Densher's mother, it further appeared, had practised on her side a distinguished industry, to the success of which—so far as success ever crowned it—this period of exile had much contributed: she copied, patient lady, famous pictures in great museums, having begun with a happy natural gift and taking in betimes the scale of her opportunity. Copyists abroad of course swarmed111, but Mrs. Densher had had a sense and a hand of her own, had arrived at a perfection that persuaded, that even deceived, and that made the disposal of her work blissfully usual. Her son, who had lost her, held her image sacred, and the effect of his telling Kate all about her, as well as about other matters until then mixed and dim, was to render his history rich, his sources full, his outline anything but common. He had come round, he had come back, he insisted abundantly, to being a Briton: his Cambridge years, his happy connection, as it had proved, with his father's college, amply certified112 to that, to say nothing of his subsequent plunge113 into London, which filled up the measure. But brave enough though his descent to English earth, he had passed, by the way, through zones of air that had left their ruffle114 on his wings, had been exposed to initiations ineffaceable. Something had happened to him that could never be undone115.
When Kate Croy said to him as much he besought116 her not to insist, declaring that this indeed was what was too much the matter with him, that he had been but too probably spoiled for native, for insular117 use. On which, not unnaturally118, she insisted the more, assuring him, without mitigation, that if he was complicated and brilliant she wouldn't for the world have had him any thing less; so that he was reduced in the end to accusing her of putting the dreadful truth to him in the hollow guise119 of flattery. She was making out how abnormal he was in order that she might eventually find him impossible; and, as she could fully make it out but with his aid, she had to bribe120 him by feigned121 delight to help her. If her last word for him, in the connection, was that the way he saw himself was just a precious proof the more of his having tasted of the tree and being thereby prepared to assist her to eat, this gives the happy tone of their whole talk, the measure of the flight of time in the near presence of his settled departure. Kate showed, however, that she was to be more literally taken when she spoke of the relief Aunt Maud would draw from the prospect of his absence.
"Yet one can scarcely see why," he replied, "when she fears me so little."
His friend weighed his objection. "Your idea is that she likes you so much that she'll even go so far as to regret losing you?"
Well, he saw it in their constant comprehensive way. "Since what she builds on is the gradual process of your alienation122, she may take the view that the process constantly requires me. Mustn't I be there to keep it going? It's in my exile that it may languish123."
He went on with that fantasy, but at this point Kate ceased to attend. He saw after a little that she had been following some thought of her own, and he had been feeling the growth of something determinant even through the extravagance of much of the pleasantry, the warm, transparent124 irony125, into which their livelier intimacy126 kept plunging127 like a confident swimmer. Suddenly she said to him with extraordinary beauty: "I engage myself to you for ever."
The beauty was in everything, and he could have separated nothing—couldn't have thought of her face as distinct from the whole joy. Yet her face had a new light. "And I pledge you—I call God to witness!—every spark of my faith; I give you every drop of my life." That was all, for the moment, but it was enough, and it was almost as quiet as if it were nothing. They were in the open air, in an alley128 of the Gardens; the great space, which seemed to arch just then higher and spread wider for them, threw them back into deep concentration. They moved by a common instinct to a spot, within sight, that struck them as fairly sequestered129, and there, before their time together was spent, they had extorted130 from concentration every advance it could make them. They had exchanged vows131 and tokens, sealed their rich compact, solemnized, so far as breathed words and murmured sounds and lighted eyes and clasped hands could do it, their agreement to belong only, and to belong tremendously, to each other. They were to leave the place accordingly an affianced couple; but before they left it other things still had passed. Densher had declared his horror of bringing to a premature132 end her happy relation with her aunt; and they had worked round together to a high level of wisdom and patience. Kate's free profession was that she wished not to deprive him of Mrs. Lowder's countenance133, which, in the long run, she was convinced he would continue to enjoy; and as, by a blessed turn, Aunt Maud had demanded of him no promise that would tie his hands, they should be able to cultivate their destiny in their own way and yet remain loyal. One difficulty alone stood out, which Densher named.
"Of course it will never do—we must remember that—from the moment you allow her to found hopes of you for any one else in particular. So long as her view is content to remain as general as at present appears, I don't see that we deceive her. At a given moment, you see, she must be undeceived: the only thing therefore is to be ready for the moment and to face it. Only, after all, in that case," the young man observed, "one doesn't quite make out what we shall have got from her."
"What she'll have got from us?" Kate inquired with a smile. "What she'll have got from us," the girl went on, "is her own affair—it's for her to measure. I asked her for nothing," she added; "I never put myself upon her. She must take her risks, and she surely understands them. What we shall have got from her is what we've already spoken of," Kate further explained; "it's that we shall have gained time. And so, for that matter, will she."
Densher gazed a little at all this clearness; his gaze was not at the present hour into romantic obscurity. "Yes; no doubt, in our particular situation, time's everything. And then there's the joy of it."
She hesitated. "Of our secret?"
"Not so much perhaps of our secret in itself, but of what's represented and, as we must somehow feel, protected and made deeper and closer by it." And his fine face, relaxed into happiness, covered her with all his meaning. "Our being as we are."
It was as if for a moment she let the meaning sink into her. "So gone?"
"So gone. So extremely gone. However," he smiled, "we shall go a good deal further." Her answer to which was only the softness of her silence—a silence that looked out for them both at the far reach of their prospect. This was immense, and they thus took final possession of it. They were practically united and they were splendidly strong; but there were other things—things they were precisely134 strong enough to be able successfully to count with and safely to allow for; in consequence of which they would, for the present, subject to some better reason, keep their understanding to themselves. It was not indeed, however, till after one more observation of Densher's that they felt the question completely straightened out. "The only thing of course is that she may any day absolutely put it to you."
Kate considered. "Ask me where, on my honour, we are? She may, naturally; but I doubt if in fact she will. While you're away she'll make the most of it. She'll leave me alone."
"But there'll be my letters."
The girl faced his letters. "Very, very many?"
"Very, very, very many—more than ever; and you know what that is! And then," Densher added, "there'll be yours."
"Oh, I shan't leave mine on the hall-table. I shall post them myself."
He looked at her a moment. "Do you think then I had best address you elsewhere?" After which, before she could quite answer, he added with some emphasis: "I'd rather not, you know. It's straighter."
She might again have just waited. "Of course it's straighter. Don't be afraid I shan't be straight. Address me," she continued, "where you like. I shall be proud enough of its being known you write to me."
He turned it over for the last clearness. "Even at the risk of its really bringing down the inquisition?"
Well, the last clearness now filled her. "I'm not afraid of the inquisition. If she asks if there's anything definite between us, I know perfectly what I shall say."
"That I am, of course, 'gone' for you?"
"That I love you as I shall never in my life love any one else, and that she can make what she likes of that." She said it out so splendidly that it was like a new profession of faith, the fulness of a tide breaking through; and the effect of that, in turn, was to make her companion meet her with such eyes that she had time again before he could otherwise speak. "Besides, she's just as likely to ask you."
"Not while I'm away."
"Then when you come back."
"Well then," said Densher, "we shall have had our particular joy. But what I feel is," he candidly135 added, "that, by an idea of her own, her superior policy, she won't ask me. She'll let me off. I shan't have to lie to her."
"It will be left all to me?" asked Kate.
"All to you!" he tenderly laughed.
But it was, oddly, the very next moment as if he had perhaps been a shade too candid136. His discrimination seemed to mark a possible, a natural reality, a reality not wholly disallowed137 by the account the girl had just given of her own intention. There was a difference in the air—even if none other than the supposedly usual difference in truth between man and woman; and it was almost as if the sense of this provoked her. She seemed to cast about an instant, and then she went back a little resentfully to something she had suffered to pass a minute before. She appeared to take up rather more seriously than she need the joke about her freedom to deceive. Yet she did this too in a beautiful way. "Men are too stupid—even you. You didn't understand just now why, if I post my letters myself, it won't be for any thing so vulgar as to hide them."
"Oh, you said—for the pleasure."
"Yes; but you didn't, you don't understand what the pleasure may be. There are refinements——!" she more patiently dropped. "I mean of consciousness, of sensation, of appreciation," she went on. "No," she sadly insisted—"men don't know. They know, in such matters, almost nothing but what women show them."
This was one of the speeches, frequent in her, that, liberally, joyfully138, intensely adopted and, in itself, as might be, embraced, drew him again as close to her, and held him as long, as their conditions permitted. "Then that's exactly why we've such an abysmal139 need of you!"
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1
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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grovel
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| vi.卑躬屈膝，奴颜婢膝 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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8
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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fatuity
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| n.愚蠢，愚昧 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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syllabled
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| 有…音节的 | |
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colossally
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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18
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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19
offset
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| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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redeemable
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| 可赎回的，可补救的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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23
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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gregariously
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ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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quail
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| n.鹌鹑；vi.畏惧，颤抖 | |
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conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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30
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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attestation
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| n.证词 | |
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portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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adroit
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| adj.熟练的，灵巧的 | |
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blandness
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| n.温柔，爽快 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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40
detriment
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| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
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41
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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42
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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43
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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44
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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45
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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46
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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47
favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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48
bidder
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| n.(拍卖时的)出价人，报价人，投标人 | |
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49
glaze
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| v.因疲倦、疲劳等指眼睛变得呆滞，毫无表情 | |
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50
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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51
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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52
flip
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| vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的 | |
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53
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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54
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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55
subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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56
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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57
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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58
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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59
asinine
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| adj.愚蠢的 | |
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60
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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61
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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62
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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63
banishing
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的现在分词 ) | |
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64
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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65
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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66
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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67
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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68
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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69
rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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70
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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71
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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72
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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73
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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74
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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75
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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76
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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77
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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78
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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79
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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80
jubilation
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| n.欢庆，喜悦 | |
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81
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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82
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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83
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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84
redeems
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| 补偿( redeem的第三人称单数 )； 实践； 解救； 使…免受责难 | |
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85
contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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86
arbiter
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| n.仲裁人，公断人 | |
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87
crucible
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| n.坩锅，严酷的考验 | |
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88
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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89
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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91
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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92
disparage
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| v.贬抑，轻蔑 | |
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93
adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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94
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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95
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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96
evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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97
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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98
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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99
idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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100
bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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101
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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102
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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103
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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104
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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105
politic
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| adj.有智虑的；精明的；v.从政 | |
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106
migratory
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| n.候鸟，迁移 | |
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107
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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108
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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109
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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110
stipend
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| n.薪贴；奖学金；养老金 | |
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111
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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112
certified
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| a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的 | |
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113
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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114
ruffle
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| v.弄皱，弄乱；激怒，扰乱；n.褶裥饰边 | |
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115
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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116
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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117
insular
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| adj.岛屿的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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118
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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119
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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120
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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121
feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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122
alienation
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| n.疏远；离间；异化 | |
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languish
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| vi.变得衰弱无力，失去活力，（植物等）凋萎 | |
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124
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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125
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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126
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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127
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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128
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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129
sequestered
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| adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押 | |
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130
extorted
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| v.敲诈( extort的过去式和过去分词 )；曲解 | |
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131
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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132
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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133
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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134
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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135
candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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136
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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137
disallowed
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| v.不承认（某事物）有效( disallow的过去式和过去分词 )；不接受；不准；驳回 | |
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138
joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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139
abysmal
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| adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的 | |
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