The last scrap19 of superiority had soon enough left her, if only because she before long knew herself for more tired than she had proposed. This and the charm, after a fashion, of the situation in itself made her linger and rest; there was a sort of spell in the sense that nobody in the world knew where she was. It was the first time in her life that this had happened; somebody, everybody appeared to have known before, at every instant of it, where she was; so that she was now suddenly able to put it to herself that that hadn't been a life. This present kind of thing therefore might be—which was where precisely20 her distinguished friend seemed to be wishing her to come out. He wished her also, it was true, not to make, as she was perhaps doing now, too much of her isolation21; at the same time however as he clearly desired to deny her no decent source of interest. He was interested—she arrived at that—in her appealing to as many sources as possible; and it fairly filtered into her, as she sat and sat, that he was essentially22 propping23 her up. Had she been doing it herself she would have called it bolstering24—the bolstering that was simply for the weak; and she thought and thought as she put together the proofs that it was as one of the weak he was treating her. It was of course as one of the weak that she had gone to him—but, oh, with how sneaking25 a hope that he might pronounce her, as to all indispensables, a veritable young lioness! What indeed she was really confronted with was the consciousness that he had not, after all, pronounced her anything: she nursed herself into the sense that he had beautifully got out of it. Did he think, however, she wondered, that he could keep out of it to the end?—though, as she weighed the question, she yet felt it a little unjust. Milly weighed, in this extraordinary hour, questions numerous and strange; but she had, happily, before she moved, worked round to a simplification. Stranger than anything, for instance, was the effect of its rolling over her that, when one considered it, he might perhaps have "got out" by one door but to come in with a beautiful, beneficent dishonesty by another. It kept her more intensely motionless there that what he might fundamentally be "up to" was some disguised intention of standing26 by her as a friend. Wasn't that what women always said they wanted to do when they deprecated the addresses of gentlemen they couldn't more intimately go on with? It was what they, no doubt, sincerely fancied they could make of men of whom they couldn't make husbands. And she didn't even reason that it was, by a similar law, the expedient27 of doctors in general for the invalids28 of whom they couldn't make patients: she was somehow so sufficiently aware that her doctor was—however fatuous29 it might sound—exceptionally moved. This was the damning little fact—if she could talk of damnation: that she could believe herself to have caught him in the act of irrelevantly30 liking31 her. She hadn't gone to him to be liked, she had gone to him to be judged; and he was quite a great enough man to be in the habit, as a rule, of observing the difference. She could like him, as she distinctly did—that was another matter; all the more that her doing so was now, so obviously for herself, compatible with judgment32. Yet it would have been all portentously33 mixed had not, as we say, a final, merciful wave, chilling rather, but washing clear, come to her assistance.
It came, of a sudden, when all other thought was spent. She had been asking herself why, if her case was grave—and she knew what she meant by that—he should have talked to her at all about what she might with futility35 "do"; or why on the other hand, if it were light, he should attach an importance to the office of friendship. She had him, with her little lonely acuteness—as acuteness went during the dog-days in the Regent's Park—in a cleft36 stick: she either mattered, and then she was ill; or she didn't matter, and then she was well enough. Now he was "acting," as they said at home, as if she did matter—until he should prove the contrary. It was too evident that a person at his high pressure must keep his inconsistencies, which were probably his highest amusements, only for the very greatest occasions. Her prevision, in fine, of just where she should catch him furnished the light of that judgment in which we describe her as daring to indulge. And the judgment it was that made her sensation simple. He had distinguished her—that was the chill. He hadn't known—how could he?—that she was devilishly subtle, subtle exactly in the manner of the suspected, the suspicious, the condemned37. He in fact confessed to it, in his way, as to an interest in her combinations, her funny race, her funny losses, her funny gains, her funny freedom, and, no doubt, above all, her funny manners—funny, like those of Americans at their best, without being vulgar, legitimating38 amiability39 and helping40 to pass it off. In his appreciation41 of these redundancies he dressed out for her the compassion42 he so signally permitted himself to waste; but its operation for herself was as directly divesting43, denuding44, exposing. It reduced her to her ultimate state, which was that of a poor girl with her rent to pay for example—staring before her in a great city. Milly had her rent to pay, her rent for her future; everything else but how to meet it fell away from her in pieces, in tatters. This was the sensation the great man had doubtless not purposed. Well, she must go home, like the poor girl, and see. There might after all be ways; the poor girl too would be thinking. It came back for that matter perhaps to views already presented. She looked about her again, on her feet, at her scattered45, melancholy46 comrades—some of them so melancholy as to be down on their stomachs in the grass, turned away, ignoring, burrowing47; she saw once more, with them, those two faces of the question between which there was so little to choose for inspiration. It was perhaps superficially more striking that one could live if one would; but it was more appealing, insinuating48, irresistible49, in short, that one would live if one could.
She found after this, for the day or two, more amusement than she had ventured to count on in the fact, if it were not a mere50 fancy, of deceiving Susie; and she presently felt that what made the difference was the mere fancy—as this was one—of a countermove to her great man. His taking on himself—should he do so—to get at her companion made her suddenly, she held, irresponsible, made any notion of her own all right for her; though indeed at the very moment she invited herself to enjoy this impunity51 she became aware of new matter for surprise, or at least for speculation52. Her idea would rather have been that Mrs. Stringham would have looked at her hard—her sketch53 of the grounds of her long, independent excursion showing, she could feel, as almost cynically54 superficial. Yet the dear woman so failed, in the event, to avail herself of any right of criticism that it was sensibly tempting55, for an hour, to wonder if Kate Croy had been playing perfectly56 fair. Hadn't she possibly, from motives57 of the highest benevolence58, promptings of the finest anxiety, just given poor Susie what she would have called the straight tip? It must immediately be mentioned, however, that, quite apart from a remembrance of the distinctness of Kate's promise, Milly, the next thing, found her explanation in a truth that had the merit of being general. If Susie, at this crisis, suspiciously spared her, it was really that Susie was always suspiciously sparing her—yet occasionally, too, with portentous34 and exceptional mercies. The girl was conscious of how she dropped at times into inscrutable, impenetrable deferences—attitudes that, though without at all intending it, made a difference for familiarity, for the ease of intimacy59. It was as if she recalled herself to manners, to the law of court-etiquette—which last note above all helped our young woman to a just appreciation. It was definite for her, even if not quite solid, that to treat her as a princess was a positive need of her companion's mind; wherefore she couldn't help it if this lady had her transcendent view of the way the class in question were treated. Susan had read history, had read Gibbon and Froude and Saint-Simon; she had high-lights as to the special allowances made for the class, and, since she saw them, when young, as effete60 and overtutored, inevitably ironic61 and infinitely62 refined, one must take it for amusing if she inclined to an indulgence verily Byzantine. If one could only be Byzantine!—wasn't that what she insidiously63 led one on to sigh? Milly tried to oblige her—for it really placed Susan herself so handsomely to be Byzantine now. The great ladies of that race—it would be somewhere in Gibbon—weren't, apparently64, questioned about their mysteries. But oh, poor Milly and hers! Susan at all events proved scarce more inquisitive65 than if she had been a mosaic66 at Ravenna. Susan was a porcelain67 monument to the odd moral that consideration might, like cynicism, have abysses. Besides, the Puritan finally disencumbered——! What starved generations wasn't Mrs. Stringham, in fancy, going to make up for?
Kate Croy came straight to the hotel—came that evening shortly before dinner; specifically and publicly moreover, in a hansom that, driven apparently very fast, pulled up beneath their windows almost with the clatter68 of an accident, a "smash." Milly, alone, as happened, in the great garnished69 void of their sitting-room70, where, a little, really, like a caged Byzantine, she had been pacing through the queer, long-drawn, almost sinister71 delay of night, an effect she yet liked—Milly, at the sound, one of the French windows standing open, passed out to the balcony that overhung, with pretensions72, the general entrance, and so was in time for the look that Kate, alighting, paying her cabman, happened to send up to the front. The visitor moreover had a shilling back to wait for, during which Milly, from the balcony, looked down at her, and a mute exchange, but with smiles and nods, took place between them on what had occurred in the morning. It was what Kate had called for, and the tone was thus, almost by accident, determined73 for Milly before her friend came up. What was also, however, determined for her was, again, yet irrepressibly again, that the image presented to her, the splendid young woman who looked so particularly handsome in impatience74, with the fine freedom of her signal, was the peculiar75 property of somebody else's vision, that this fine freedom in short was the fine freedom she showed Mr. Densher. Just so was how she looked to him, and just so was how Milly was held by her—held as by the strange sense of seeing through that distant person's eyes. It lasted, as usual, the strange sense, but fifty seconds; yet in so lasting76 it produced an effect. It produced in fact more than one, and we take them in their order. The first was that it struck our young woman as absurd to say that a girl's looking so to a man could possibly be without connections; and the second was that by the time Kate had got into the room Milly was in mental possession of the main connection it must have for herself.
She produced this commodity on the spot—produced it, that is, in straight response to Kate's frank "Well, what?" The inquiry77 bore of course, with Kate's eagerness, on the issue of the morning's scene, the great man's latest wisdom, and it doubtless affected78 Milly a little as the cheerful demand for news is apt to affect troubled spirits when news is not, in one of the neater forms, prepared for delivery. She couldn't have said what it was exactly that, on the instant, determined her; the nearest description of it would perhaps have been as the more vivid impression of all her friend took for granted. The contrast between this free quantity and the maze79 of possibilities through which, for hours, she had herself been picking her way, put on, in short, for the moment, a grossness that even friendly forms scarce lightened: it helped forward in fact the revelation to herself that she absolutely had nothing to tell. Besides which, certainly, there was something else—an influence, at the particular juncture80, still more obscure. Kate had lost, on the way upstairs, the look—the look—that made her young hostess so subtly think and one of the signs of which was that she never kept it for many moments at once; yet she stood there, none the less, so in her bloom and in her strength, so completely again the "handsome girl" beyond all others, the "handsome girl" for whom Milly had at first gratefully taken her, that to meet her now with the note of the plaintive81 would amount somehow to a surrender, to a confession82. She would never in her life be ill; the greatest doctor would keep her, at the worst, the fewest minutes; and it was as if she had asked just with all this practical impeccability for all that was most mortal in her friend. These things, for Milly, inwardly danced their dance; but the vibration83 produced and the dust kicked up had lasted less than our account of them. Almost before she knew it she was answering, and answering, beautifully, with no consciousness of fraud, only as with a sudden flare84 of the famous "will-power" she had heard about, read about, and which was what her medical adviser85 had mainly thrown her back on. "Oh, it's all right. He's lovely."
Kate was splendid, and it would have been clear for Milly now, had the further presumption86 been needed, that she had said no word to Mrs. Stringham. "You mean you've been absurd?"
"Absurd." It was a simple word to say, but the consequence of it, for our young woman, was that she felt it, as soon as spoken, to have done something for her safety.
And Kate really hung on her lips. "There's nothing at all the matter?"
"Nothing to worry about. I shall take a little watching, but I shan't have to do anything dreadful, or even, in the least, inconvenient87. I can do in fact as I like." It was wonderful for Milly how just to put it so made all its pieces fall at present quite properly into places.
Yet even before the full effect came Kate had seized, kissed, blessed her. "My love, you're too sweet! It's too dear! But it's as I was sure." Then she grasped the full beauty. "You can do as you like?"
"Quite. Isn't it charming?"
"Ah, but catch you," Kate triumphed with gaiety, "not doing——! And what shall you do?"
"For the moment simply enjoy it. Enjoy"—Milly was completely luminous—"having got out of my scrape."
"Learning, you mean, so easily, that you are well."
It was as if Kate had but too conveniently put the words into her mouth. "Learning, I mean, so easily, that I am well."
"Only, no one's of course well enough to stay in London now. He can't," Kate went on, "want this of you."
"Mercy, no—I'm to knock about. I'm to go to places."
"But not beastly 'climates'—Engadines, Rivieras, boredoms?"
"No; just, as I say, where I prefer. I'm to go in for pleasure."
"The highest," Milly smiled.
Her friend met it as nobly. "Which is the highest?"
"Well, it's just our chance to find out. You must help me."
"What have I wanted to do but help you," Kate asked, "from the moment I first laid eyes on you?" Yet with this too Kate had her wonder. "I like your talking, though, about that. What help, with your luck all round, do you want?"
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1
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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conducive
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| adj.有益的，有助的 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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overdoing
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| v.做得过分( overdo的现在分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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eschewing
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| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的现在分词 ) | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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essentially
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propping
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| 支撑 | |
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bolstering
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| v.支持( bolster的现在分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
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sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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invalids
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| 病人，残疾者( invalid的名词复数 ) | |
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fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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irrelevantly
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| adv.不恰当地，不合适地；不相关地 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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portentously
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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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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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legitimating
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| v.合情合理的( legitimate的现在分词 )；合法的；法律认可的；法定的 | |
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amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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divesting
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| v.剥夺( divest的现在分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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denuding
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| v.使赤裸( denude的现在分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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burrowing
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的现在分词 )；翻寻 | |
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insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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cynically
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| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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insidiously
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| 潜在地，隐伏地，阴险地 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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84
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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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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