 Book 5, Chapter 3 of the Wings of the Dub. What it really came to on the morrow this first time, the time Kate went with her, was that the great man had, a little, to excuse himself, had by a rare accident, for he kept his consulting hours in general, rigorously free, but ten minutes to give her, ten mere minutes which she yet placed at her service, in a manner that she admired still more than she could meet it. So Crystal cleaned the great empty cup of attention that he set between them on the table. He was presently to jump into his carriage, but he promptly made the point that he must see her again, see her within a day or two, and he named for her at once another hour, easing her off beautifully too, even then in respect to her possibly failing of justice to her errand. The minutes affected her in fact as ebbing more swiftly than her little army of items could muster, and they would probably have gone without her doing much more than secure another hearing, hadn't it been for her sense at the last that she had gained above all an impression? The impression all the sharp growth of the final few moments was neither more nor less than that she might make of a sudden in quite another world, another straight friend, and a friend who would moreover be wonderfully the most appointed, the most thoroughly adjusted of the whole collection, inasmuch as he would somehow wear the character scientifically, ponderably, probably, not just loosely and sociably. Literally furthermore, it wouldn't really depend on herself. Sir Luke Stratt's friendship, in the least perhaps was what made her most stammer and pan, was thus clearly coming over her that she might find she had interested him even beyond her intention, find she was in fact launched in some current that would lose itself in the sea of science. At the same time that she struggled however, she also surrendered. There was a moment at which she almost dropped the former stating of explaining, and threw herself without violence only with the supreme point's quiver that had turned the next instant to an intensity of interrogative stillness upon his general goodwill. His large, subtle face, though firm, was not as she had thought at first hard. He looked in the oddest manner to her fancy, half like a general, and half like a bishop, and she was soon sure that, within some such handsome range, what it would show her would be what was good, what was best for her. She had established in other words in this time-saving way a relation with it, and the relation was the special trophy that for the hour she bore off. It was like an absolute possession, a new resource altogether, something done up in the softest silk and tucked away under the arm of memory. She hadn't had it when she went in, and she had it when she came out. She had it there under her cloak, but dissimulated, invisibly carried, when smiling, smiling, she again faced Kate Croy. That young lady had, of course, awaited her in another room, where, as the great man was to absent himself, no one else was in attendance, and she rose for her with such a face of sympathy as might have graced the vestibule of a dentist. Is it out?" she seemed to ask as if it had been a question of a tooth, and Millie indeed kept her in no suspense at all. He said, dear, I'm to come again. But what does he say? Millie was almost gay, that I'm not to worry about anything in the world, and that if I'll be a good girl and do exactly what he tells me, he'll take care of me for ever and ever. Kate wondered as if things scarce fitted, but does he allow then that you're ill? I don't know what he allows, and I don't care. I shall know, and whatever it is it will be enough. He knows all about me, and I like it. I don't hate it a bit." Still, however, Kate stared. But could he in so few minutes ask you enough? He asked me scarcely anything. He doesn't need to do anything so stupid, Millie said. He can tell. He knows, she repeated, and when I go back, for he'll have thought me over a little, it will be all right. Kate, after a moment, made the best of this. Then when are we to come? It just pulled a friend up, for even while they talked, at least it was one of their reasons. She stood there suddenly, irrelevantly, in the light of the other identity, the identity she would have for Mr. Densher. This was always from one instant to another, in incalculable light, which, though it might go off faster than it came on, necessarily disturbed. It sprang with the perversity all its own, from the fact that with the lapse of hours and days, the chances themselves that made for its being named continued so oddly to fail. There were twenty, there were fifty, but none of them turned up. This in particular was, of course, not a juncture at which the least of them would naturally be present, but it would make, nonetheless, Millie saw, another day practically all stamped with avoidance. She saw in a quick glimmer, and with it all Kate's unconsciousness, and then she shook off the obsession, but it had lasted long enough to qualify her response. No, she had shown Kate how she trusted her, and that, for loyalty, would somehow do. Oh, dear thing, now that the ice is broken, I shan't trouble you again. You'll come alone? Without a scruple, only I shall ask you, please, for your absolute discretion still. Outside, at a distance from the door, on the wide pavement of the great contiguous square, they had to wait again while their carriage, which Millie had kept, completed a further turn of exercise, engaged in by the coachman for reasons of his own. The footman was there, and had indicated that he was making the circuit, so Kate went on while they stood. But don't you ask a good deal, darling, in proportion to what you give? This pulled Millie up still shorter, so short in fact that she yielded as soon as she had taken it in, but she continued to smile. I see, then you can tell. I don't want to tell, said Kate. I'll be as silent as the tomb if I can only have the truth from you. All I want is that you shouldn't keep from me how you find out that you really are. Well, then I won't ever, but you see for yourself, Millie went on, how I really am. I'm satisfied, I'm happy." Kate looked at her long. I believe you like it, the way things turn out for you. Millie met her look now without a thought of anything but the spoken. She had ceased to be Mr. Denchers' image. She stood for nothing but herself, and she was none the less fine. Still, still what had passed was a fair bargain, and it would do. Of course I like it. I feel I can't otherwise describe it as if I had been on my knees to the priest. I've confessed and I've been absolved. It has been lifted off. Kate's eyes never quitted her. He must have liked you. Oh, doctors, Millie said, but I hope, she added, he didn't like me too much. Then, as if to escape a little from her friend's deeper sounding, or, as impatient for the carriage, not yet in sight, her eyes turning away took in the great stale square. As its staleness, however, was but that of London fairly fatigued, the late hot London, with its dance all danced, and its story all told. The air seemed a thing of blurred pictures and mixed echoes, and the impression met the sense, an impression that broke the next moment through the girl's tightened lips. Oh, it's a beautiful big world, and everyone, yes, everyone! It presently brought her back to Kate, and she hoped she didn't actually look as much as if she were crying, as she must have looked to Lord Mark among the portraits at Machham. Kate, at all events, understood. Everyone wants to be so nice. So nice, said the grateful Millie. Oh, Kate laughed, we'll pull you through, and won't you now bring Mrs. Stringham? But Millie, after an instant was again clear about that. Not till I have seen him once more. She was to have found this preference, two days later abundantly justified, and yet when, in prompt accordance with what had passed between them, she reappeared before her distinguished friend, the character having for him in the interval built itself up still higher. The first thing he asked her was whether she had been accompanied, she told him, on this straight away, everything completely free at present from her first embarrassment, disposed even, as she felt she might become, to undue volubility, and conscious moreover of no alarm from his, thus perhaps wishing she had not come alone. It was exactly as if in the forty-eight hours that had passed, her acquaintance with him had somehow increased, and his own knowledge in particular received mysterious additions. They had been together before scarce ten minutes, but the relation, the one the ten minutes had so beautifully created, was there to take straight up, and this not on his own part from mere professional heartiness, mere beside manner which he would have disliked, much rather from a quiet pleasant air in him, of having positively asked about her, asked here, and asked there, and found out. Of course he couldn't in the least have asked, or have wanted to. There was no source of information to his hand, and he had really needed none. He had found out simply by his genius, and found out she meant literally everything. Now she knew not only that she didn't dislike this, the state of being found out about, but that on the contrary it was truly what she had come for, and that for the time at least it would give her something firm to stand on. She struck herself as aware, aware as she had never been, of really not having had from the beginning anything firm. It would be strange for the firmness to come, after all, from her learning in these agreeable conditions that she was in some way doomed. But above all it would prove how little she had hitherto had to hold her up. If she was now to be held up by the prayer process, since that was perhaps on the cards of being let down, this would only testify in turn to her queer little history. That sense of loosely rattling had been no process at all, and it was ridiculously true that her thus sitting there to see her life put into the scales represented her first approach to the taste of orderly living. Such was Milly's romantic version that her life, especially by the fact of this second interview, was put into the scales, and just the best part of the relation established might have been for that matter, that the great, great, charming man knew, had known at once that it was romantic and in that measure allowed for it. Her only doubt, her only fear, was whether he perhaps wouldn't even take advantage of her being a little romantic to treat her as romantic altogether. This doubtless was her danger with him, but she should see, and dangers in general meanwhile dropped and dropped. The very place, at the end of a few minutes, the comodious, handsome room, far back in the fine old house, soundless from position, somewhat sallow with years of celebrity, somewhat somber even at mid-summer, the very place put on for her a look of custom and use, squared itself solidly around her as with promises and certainties. She had come forth to see the world, and this then was to be the world's light, the rich dusk of a London back, these the world's walls, those the world's curtains and carpet. She should be intimate with the great bronze clock and mantle ornaments, conspiciously presented in gratitude and long ago. She should be as one of the circle of eminent contemporaries, photographed and read, signatured, and in particular framed and glazed, who made up the rest of the decoration and made up as well so much of the human comfort. And while she thought of all the clean truths, unfringed, unfingered, that the listening stillness strained into pauses and weights, she should be as one of the circle of eminent contemporaries, photographed and read, would again and again for years have kept distinct. She also wondered what she would eventually decide upon to present in gratitude. She would give something better, at least than the brawny Victorian bronces. This was precisely an instant of what she felt he knew of her before he had done with her, that she was secretly romancing at that rate, in the midst of so much else that was more urgent all over the place. So much for her secrets with him, none of which really required to be phrased. It would have been thoroughly a secret for her from anyone else, that without a dear lady, she had picked up just before coming over, she wouldn't have a decently near connection of any sort. For such an appeal as she was making to put forward, no one in the least as it were to produce for respectability. But his seeing it, she didn't mind a scrap, and not a scrap either his knowing how she had left the dear lady in the dark. She had come alone, putting her friend off with the fraud, giving a pretext of shops of a whim, of she didn't know what, the amusement of being for once in the streets by herself. The streets by herself were new to her. She had always had in them a companion or a maid, and he was never to believe moreover that she couldn't take full in the face anything he might have to say. He was softly amused at her account of her courage, though he yet showed it somehow without soothing her too grossly. Still he did want to know whom she had. Hadn't there been a lady with her on Wednesday? Yes, a different one, not the one who's travelling with me. I've told her. Distinctly he was amused, and it added to his air the greatest charm of all of giving her lots of time. You've told her what? Well, suddenly, that I visit you in secret. And how many persons will she tell? Oh, she's devoted, not one. Well, if she's devoted, doesn't that make another friend for you? It didn't take much computation, but she nevertheless had to think a moment, conscious as she was that he distinctly would want to fill out his notions of her, even a little, as it were, to warm the air for her. That, however, and better early than late, he must accept as of no use. And she herself felt, for an instance, quite a competent certainty on the subject of any such warming. The air, formally feel, was, from the very nature of the case, destined never to rid itself of a considerable chill. This she could tell him with authority if she could tell him nothing else, and she seemed to see now, in short, that it would importantly simplify. Yes, it makes another, but they all together wouldn't make, well, I don't know what to call it, but the difference. I mean, when one is really alone, I've never seen anything like the kindness. She pulled up a minute while he waited, waited again as if with his reasons for letting her, for almost making her talk. What she herself wanted was not for the third time to cry, as it were, in public. She had never seen anything like the kindness, and she wished to do it justice. But she knew what she was about, and justice was not wrong by her being able, presently, to stick to her point. Only one situation is what it is. It's me it concerns. The rest is delightful and useless. Nobody can really help. That's why I am by myself today. I want to be, in spite of Miss Croy, who came with me last. If you can help so much the better, and also, of course, if one can a little one's self, except for that, you and me doing our best. I like you to see me just as I am. Yes, I like it, and I don't exaggerate. Shouldn't one at the start show the worst, so that anything after that may be better? It wouldn't make any real difference. It won't make any, anything that may happen won't, to anyone. Therefore I feel myself this way with you, just as I am. And if you do not, in the least care to know, it quite positively bears me up. She put it as to his caring to know, because his manner seemed to give her all her chance, and the impression was there for her to take. It was strange and deep for her, this impression, and she did accordingly take it straight home. It showed him, showed him in spite of himself, as allowing somewhere far within, things comparatively remote, things in fact quite, as she would have said, outside delicately to weigh with him, showed him as interested on her behalf in other questions beside the questions of what was the matter with her. She accepted such an interest as regular in the highest type of scientific mind, his own being, the highest magnificently, because otherwise obviously it wouldn't be there, but she could at the same time take it as a direct source of light upon herself, even though that might present her a little as pretending to equal him. Wanting to know more about a patient than how a patient was constructed or deranged couldn't be, even on the part of the greatest of doctors, anything but some form or other of the desire to let the patient down easily. When that was the case, the reason in turn could only be to manifestly pity and when pity held up its tell-tale face like a head on a pie in a French Revolution or for a window what was the inference but that the patient was bad. He might say what he would now she would always have seen the head at the window and in fact from this moment she only wanted him to say what he would. He might say it too with the greater ease to himself as there wasn't one of her divinations that as her own he would in any way put himself out for. Finally, if he was making her talk she was talking and what it could at any rate come to for him was that she wasn't afraid. If he wanted to do the dearest thing in the world for her he would show her he believed she wasn't which undertaking of hers not to have misled him was what she counted at the moment as her presumptuous little hint to him that she was as good as himself. It put forward the bold idea that he could really be misled and there actually passed between them for some seconds a sign a sign of the eyes only that they knew together where they were. This made in their brown old temple of truth its momentary flicker then what followed it was that he had her all the same in his pocket and the whole thing wound up for that consummation with his kind dim smile such kindness was wonderful with such dimness but brightness that even of sharp steel was of course for the other side of the business and it would all come in for her to one tune or another. Do you mean he asked that you've no relation at all not a parent not a sister not even a cousin nor an aunt as with the easy habit of an interviewed heroine or a freak of nature at a show nobody whatever but the last thing she had come for was to be dreary about it I'm a survivor a survivor of a general wreck you see she added how that's to be taken into account that everyone else has gone when I was ten years old there were with my father and my mother six of us I'm all that's left but they died she went on to be fair all round of different things still there it is and as I told you before I'm American not that I mean that makes me worse however you'll probably know what it makes me yes he even showed amusement for it I know perfectly what it makes you it makes you to begin with a capital case she sighed though gratefully as if again before the social scene ah there you are oh no there we aren't at all there I'm only but as much as you like I've no end of American friends there they are if you please and it's a fact that you couldn't very well be in a better place it puts you with plenty of others and that isn't pure solitude then he pursued I'm sure you've an excellent spirit but don't try to bear more things than you need which after an instant he further explained hard things have come to you in you but you mustn't think life will be for you all hard things you've the right to be happy you must make up your mind to it you must accept any form in which happiness may come oh I'll accept any whatever she almost gaily returned and it seems to me for that matter that I am accepting a new one every day now this she smiled this is very well so far as it goes you can depend on me the great man said for unlimited interest but I'm only after all one element in 50 we must gather in plenty of others don't mind who knows knows I mean that you and I are friends ah you don't want to see someone she broke out you want to get at someone who cares for me with which however as he simply met this spontaneity in a manner to show that he had often had it from young persons of her race and that he was familiar even with the possibilities of their familiarity she felt her freedom rendered vain by his silence and she immediately tried to think of the most reasonable thing she could say this would be precisely on the subject of that freedom which she now quickly spoke of as complete that's of course by itself a great boon so please don't think I don't know it I can do exactly what I like anything in all the wide world I haven't a creature to ask there's not a finger to stop me I can shake about till I'm black and blue that perhaps isn't all joy but lots of people I know would like to try it he had appeared about to put a question but then had let her go on which she promptly did for she understood him the next moment as having thus taken it from her that her means were as great as might be she had simply given it to him and this was all that would ever pass between them on the odious head yet she couldn't help also knowing that an important effect for his judgment or at least for his amusement which was his feeling since marvelously he did have feeling was produced by it all her little pieces had now then fallen together for him like the morsels of a coloured glass that used to make combinations under the hand in the depth of one of the polygonal peep shows of childhood so that if it's a question of my doing anything under the sun that will help you'll do anything under the sun? good he took that beautifully ever so pleasantly for what it was worth for him was needed the minutes or so were needed on the spot to deal even provisionally with a substantive question it was convenient in its degree that there was nothing she wouldn't do but it seemed also highly and agreeably vague that she should have to do anything they thus appeared to be taking her together for the moment and almost for sociability as prepared to proceed to gratuitous extremities the upshot of which was in turn that after much interrogation auscultation exploration much noting of his own sequences and neglecting of hers had julie kept up the vagueness they might have struck themselves or may at least strike us as coming back from an undeterred but useless voyage to the north pole mealy was ready under orders for the north pole which fact was doubtless what made a blinding anticlimax of her friend's actual obstination from orders no she heard him again distinctly repeated I don't want you for the present to do anything at all anything that is but obey a small prescription or two that will be made clear to you and let me within a few days go back home it was just first heavenly then you'll see Mrs. Stringham but she didn't mind a bit now well I shan't be afraid of Mrs. Stringham and he said it once more as she asked once more absolutely not I send you nowhere England's all right anywhere that's pleasant convenient decent will be all right you say you can do exactly as you like I'm obliged me therefore by being so good as to do it there's only one thing you ought of course now as soon as I've seen you again to get out of London mealy thought may I then go back to the continent by all means back to the continent do go back to the continent then how will you keep seeing me but perhaps she quickly added you don't want to keep seeing me ready he had really everything already I shall follow you up though if you mean that I don't want you to keep seeing me well she asked it was only just here that he struck her the least bit as stumbling well see all you can that's what it comes to worry about nothing you have at least no worries it's a great rare chance she had got up for she had had from him both that he would send her something and would advise her promptly of the date of his coming to her by which she was virtually dismissed yet for herself one or two things kept her may I come back to England too rather whenever you like but always when you do come immediately let me know ah said mealy a great going to and fro then if you'll stay with us so much the better it touched her the way he controlled his impatience over and the fact itself affected her as so precious that she yielded to the wish to get more from it so you don't think I'm out of my mind perhaps that is he smiled or that's the matter she looked at him longer no that's too good it's a great suffer not a bit and yet then live my dear young lady said her distinguished friend isn't to live exactly what I'm trying to persuade you to take the trouble to do end of book fifth chapter three read by Lars Rolander book fifth chapter four of the Wings of the Dub this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander the Wings of the Dub by Henry James book fifth chapter four she had gone out with these last words so in her ears that when once she was well away back this time in the great square alone it was as if some instant application of them had opened out there before her it was positively that effect an excitement that carried her on she went forward into space under the sense of an impulsive receive an impulse simple and direct easy above all to act on she was born up for the hour and now she knew why she had wanted to come by herself another one in the world could have sufficiently entered into her state no tie would have been close enough to enable a companion to walk beside her without some disparity she literally felt in this first flush that her only company must be the human race at large present all around her but inspiringly impersonal and that her only field must be then and there she was born into the humanity of London grey immensity had somehow of a sudden become her element grey immensity was what her distinguished friend had for the moment furnished her world with and what the question of living as he put it to her living by option by volition inevitably took on for its immediate weakness all together with strength and still as she went she was more glad to be alone for nobody not Kate Croy not Susan Shepard either would have wished to rush with her as she rushed she had asked him at the last whether being on foot she might go home so or elsewhere and he had replied as if almost amused again at her extravagance you're active luckily by nature it's beautiful therefore rejoice in it be active without folly for you're not foolish be as active as you can and as you like that had been in fact the final push as well as the touch that most made a mixture of her consciousness a strange mixture that tasted at the same time of what she had lost and what had been given her it was wonderful to her while she took a random course that these quantities felt so equal she had been treated hadn't she as if it were in her power to live and yet one wasn't treated so was one unless it had come up quite as much that one might die and had gone from the small old sense of safety that was distinct she had lifted behind her there forever but the beauty of the idea of a great adventure a big dim experiment or struggle in which she might more responsibly than ever before take a hand had been offered her instead it was as if she had had to pluck off her breast a familiar flower a little old jewel that was part of a daily dress and to take up and shoulder as a substitute some queer defensive weapon a musket a spear a battle axe conducive possibly in a higher degree to striking appearance but demanding all the effort of the military posture she felt this instrument that matter already on her back so that she proceeded now in very truth after the fashion of a soldier on a march proceeded as if for her initiation the first charge had been sounded she passed along unknown streets over dusty literary ways between long rows of fronts not enhanced by the August light she felt good for miles and only wanted to get lost there were moments at corners where she stopped and choose her direction in which she quite lived up to the ease and junction to rejoice that she was active it was like a new pleasure to have so new a reason she would affirm without delay her option her volition taking this personal possession of what surrounded her was a fair affirmation to start with she believed it at the cost of alarms for Susie Susie would wonder in due course whatever as they said at the hotel had become of her yet this would be nothing either probably to wondermen still in store wondermen's in truth Milly felt even now attended her steps it was quite as if she saw in people's eyes the reflection of her appearance she found herself moving at times in regions visibly not haunted by odd looking girls from New York duskily draped, sable plumed all but incongruously shod and gazing about them with extravagance she might from the curiosity she clearly excited in byways inside streets people with grimy children and costar monger's carts which she hoped were slums literally have had her musket on her shoulder have announced herself as freshly on the warpath but for the fear of overdoing the character she would hear and there have begun conversation have asked her way in spite of the fact that as this would help the requirements of adventure her way was exactly what she wanted not to know the difficulty was that she at last accidentally found it she had come out she presently saw at the regents park round which on two or three occasions with Kate Croy her public chariot had solemnly rolled but she went into it further now this was the real thing the real thing was to be quite away from the pompous roads well within the centre and on the stretches of shabby grass here were benches and smutty sheep here were idle lads at games of ball with their cries smiled in the thick air here were wonderers anxious and tired like herself here doubtless were hundreds of others just in the same box their box their great common anxiety what was it in this grim breathing space but the practical question of life they could live if they would that is like herself they had been told so she saw them all about her on seats digesting the information recognising it again as something in a slightly different shape familiar enough the blessed old truth that they would live if they could all she thus shared with them made her wish to sit in their company which she so far did that she looked for a bench a skewing, a still emptier chair that she saw hard by and for which she would have paid with superiority a fee the last scrap 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 an accepted 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 alive this present kind of thing therefore might be because where precisely 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 isolation at the same time however as he clearly decided 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 essentially propping her up had she been doing it herself she would have called it bolstering the bolstering that was simply for the week and she thought and thought as she put together the proofs that it was as one of the week he was treating her it was of course as one of the week that she had gone to him but oh with how sneaking 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 hadn't 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 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 of the 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 standing 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 expedient of doctors in general for the invalids of whom they couldn't make patients she was somehow so sufficiently aware that her doctor was however fatuous 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 irrelevantly liking 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 obviously for herself compatible with judgment yet it would have been all potentially mixed had not as we say a final and merciful way 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 all about what she might with futility do or why on the other hand if it were like 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 region park in a left 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 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 provision in fine of just where he should catch him furnish the light of that judgment in which we describe her as daring to indulge in her 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 condemned 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 legitimating amiability and helping to pass it off in his appreciation of these redundancies he dressed out for her the compassion he so signally permitted himself directly divesting denuding exposing it reduced her to her ultimate state which was that of a poor girl with a 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 when she first 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 scattered melancholy comrades some of them so melancholy as to be down on their stomachs in the grass burrowing 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 insinuating irresistible in short that one would live if one could she found after this for the day or two a venture to count on in the fact if it were not a mere fancy of deceiving Susie and she presently felt that what made the difference was the mere fancy as this was one of a counter move to her great man he's taking on himself should he do so to get at her companion made her suddenly she held irresponsible made any notion of her own right for her though indeed at the very moment she invited herself to enjoy this impunity she became aware of new matter for surprise or at least for speculation her idea would rather have been that Mrs. Stringham would have looked at her heart her sketch of the grounds of her independent long excursion showing she could feel as almost cynically superficial but the woman so failed in the event to avail herself of any right of criticism that it was sensibly tempting to wonder for an hour if Kate Croy had been playing perfectly fair hadn't she possibly from motives of the highest benevolence prompting of the finest anxiety just given for Susie what she would have called the straight tip it must immediately be mentioned however that quite a part of the distinctness of Kate's promise Millie, 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 potentials and exceptional mercies the girl was conscious of how she dropped at times into inscrutable differences attitudes that though without all intending it made a difference for familiarity for the ease of intimacy 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 adjust appreciation it was definite for her even if not quite solid that to treat her as a princess was a positive need for her in this mine therefore 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 Frode and Saint Simone she had highlights as to the special allowances made for the class and since she saw them when young as a feat and overtutured inevitably ironic to take it for amusing have she inclined to an indulgence verily Byzantine if one could only be Byzantine wasn't that was she insidiously led one on to sigh Milly tried to blight her for it really plays Susan herself so handsomely to be Byzantine now the great ladies of that race it would be somewhere in Gibbon were apparently not questioned about their mysteries but oh poor Milly and hers Susan at all event proved scarce more inquisitive than if she had been a mosaic at Ravenna Susan was a porcelain 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 handsom that driven apparently very fast pulled up beneath their windows almost with a clutter of an accident a smash Milly alone as happened in the great garnished void of their sitting room were a little really she had been pacing through the queer long drawn almost sinister 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 pretensions the general entrance and so was in time for the look that Kate alighting paying her cabin happened to send up to the front the visitor moreover 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 determined 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 impatience with a fine freedom of her signal was the peculiar property of somebody else's vision that this fine freedom in short was the fine freedom she showed Mr. Denture just so was how she looked to him and just so was how Milly had 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 50 seconds yet in so lasting 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 in straight response to Kate's frank while what the inquiry bore of course with Kate's eagerness on the issue of the morning scene the great man's latest wisdom and it doubtless effected 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 maze 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 form scares lightened it helped forward in fact the revelation to herself that she absolutely had nothing to tell besides which certainly there was something else at the particular juncture still more obscure Kate had lost on the way upstairs the look that made her young host so subtly think of one of the signs which was that she never kept it for many moments at once yet she stood there nonetheless so in her bloom and in her strength so completely again the handsome girl beyond all others the handsome girl for whom Millie had at first gratefully taken her that to meet her now with the note of the plaintive would amount somehow to a surrender to a confession she would never in her life be ill the greatest doctors 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 Millie inwardly danced their dance but the vibration produced and the dust kicked up had lasted less than an account of them almost before she knew it she was answering and answering beautifully with no consciousness of fraud only as with a sudden flare of the famous willpower she had heard about read about and which was what her medical advisor had mainly thrown her back on oh it's all right he's lovely Kate was splendid and it would have been clear for Millie now had the further presumption been needed that she had said no word and you have 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 is nothing at all the matter nothing to worry about I shall need a little watching but I shan't have to do anything dreadful Kate had ceased inconvenient I can do in fact as I like it was wonderful for Millie how just to put it so made all its pieces fall at present quite properly into their places yet even before the full effect came Kate had ceased kiss 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 gait not doing and what shall you do for the moment simply enjoy it enjoy Millie was completely luminous having got out of my scrape learning your means 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 for you mercy no I'm to knock about no places but no beastly climates Engadins, Riviera's, Boredom's no just as I say when I prefer I'm to go in for pleasure oh the duck Kate with her own shades of familiarity abounded but what kind of pleasure the highest Millie 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 need more read by rolander book fifth chapter five of the wings of the dub this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by rolander the wings of the dub indeed at last couldn't say so that she had really for the time brought it along to the point so oddly marked for her by her visitor's arrival the truth that she was endubly strong she carried this out from that evening for each hour still left her and the more easily perhaps that the hours were now narrowly numbered all she actually waited for was Sir Luke Stretch's promised visit as to her proceeding on which her mind was quite made up since he wanted to get at Susie he should have the freest access and then perhaps he would see how he liked it what was between them they might settle as between them and any pressure it should lift from her own spirit they were at liberty to convert to their use if the dear man wished to fire Susan Shepard with a still higher ideal he would only after all at the worst have Susan on his hands if devotion in a word was what it would come up for the interested pair to organize she was herself ready to consume it as the dressed and served dish he had talked to her over appetite her account of which she felt must have been vague but for devotion she could now see this appetite would be of the best greedy, ravenous these were doubtless the proper names for her she was at all events resigned in advance to the machinations of sympathy the day that followed her lonely excursion was to be the last but two or three of their stay in London and the evening of that day practically ranked for them as in the matter of outside relations the last of all people were by this time those who had so liberally manifested in calls in cards in evidence sincerity about visits later on over the land had positively passed in music out of sight whether as members these latter, more especially of Mrs. Loader's immediate circle or as members of Lord Mark's are friends being by this time able to make the distinction the general pitch had thus decidedly and the occasion still to be dealt with were special and few one of these for Millie announced itself as the doctor's call already mentioned as to which she had now had a note from him the single other of importance was there a pointed lead taking for the shortest separation in respect to Mrs. Loader and Kate the aunt and the niece were to dine with them alone intimately and easily as easily as should be consistent with the question of their afterwards going on together to some absurdly belated party at which they had had it from aunt Maude that they would do well to show Sir Luke was to make his appearance on the morrow of this and in respect to that complication Millie had already her plan the night was at all events hot and stale and it was late enough the four ladies had been gathered in for their small session at the hotel where the windows were still open to the high balconies and the flames of the candles behind the pink shades disposed as for the vigil of watchers were motionless in the air in which the season lay dead what was presently settled among them was that Millie who betrayed on this occasion a preference more marked than usual and she was obliged to climb that evening the social stare however it might stretch to meet her and that Mrs. Loder and Mrs. Stringham facing the ordeal together Kate Croy should remain with her and await their return it was a pleasure to Millie ever to send Susan Shepherd forth she saw her go with complacency like as it were to put people off with her and noted with satisfaction when she so moved to the carriage the further denudation are markedly ebbing tied of her little benevolent back if it wasn't quite Aunt Maud's idea moreover to take out the new American girl's funny friend instead of the new American girl herself nothing could better indicate the range of that ladies merit than the spirit in which has at the present hour for instance she made the best of the minor advantage and she did this with a broad cheerful absence of illusion she did it confessing even as much to poor Susie because frankly she was good-natured when Mrs. Stringham observed that her own light was too abjectly borrowed and that it was as a link alone fortunately not missing that she was valued Aunt Maud concurred to the extent of the remark well my dear you're better than nothing tonight furthermore it came up for Millie that Aunt Maud had something particular in mind Mrs. Stringham before a journey with her had gone off for some shawl or other accessory and Kate as if a little impatient for their withdrawal had wandered out to the balcony where she who would for the time unseen was more vivid than the dim London stars and the cruder glow of the street on a corner of a small public house in front of which a fagged cab horse was thrown into relief Mrs. Loder made use of the moment Millie felt as soon as she had spoken that what she was doing was somehow for use Dear Susan tells me that you saw in America Mr. Densher whom I've never till now you may have noticed asked you about but do you mind at last in connection with him doing something for me she had lowered her fine voice to a depth though speaking with all her rich glibness and Millie after a small sharpness of surprise was already guessing the sense of her appeal will you name him in any way you like to her Aunt Maud gave a nod at the window so that you may perhaps find out whether he is back ever so many things for Millie fell into line at this it was a wonder she afterwards thought that she could be conscious of so many at once she smiled hard however for them all but I don't know that it's important to me the array of things was further swollen however even as she said this by striking her as too much to say she therefore tried as quickly to say less except you mean of course that it's important to you she fancied Aunt Maud was looking at her almost as hard as she was herself smiling and that gave her another impulse you know I never have yet named him to her so that if I should break out now well Mrs. Loda waited why she may wonder what I've been making a mystery of she hasn't mentioned him you know Millie went on herself no her friend a little heavily weighed it she wouldn't so it's she you see then who has made the mystery yes Millie but wanted to see only there was so much there has been of course no particular reason yet that indeed was neither here nor there do you think she asked he is back it will be about this time I gather and rather comfort to me definitely to know then can't you ask her yourself we never speak of him she helped Millie for the moment to the convenience of a puzzled pause do you mean he's an acquaintance of whom you disapprove for her Aunt Maud as well just hung fire I disapprove of her for the poor young man she doesn't care for him and he cares so much too much too much and my fear is said Mrs. Loder that he privately besets her she keeps it to herself but I don't want her worried neither in truth she both generously and confidentially concluded do I want him Millie showed all her own effort to meet the case but what can I do you can find out where they are if I myself try Mrs. Loder explained I shall appear to treat them as if I supposed them deceiving me and you don't you don't Millie mused for her supposed them deceiving you well said Aunt Maud whose fine onyx eyes failed to blink even though Millie's question might have been taken as drawing her rather further than to go well Kate's thoroughly aware of my views for her and that I take her being with me at present in the way she is with me if you know what I mean for a loyal ascent to them therefore as my views don't happen to provide a place at all for Mr. Densher much in a manner as I like him therefore in short she had been prompted to this step though she completed her sentence but sketchily with the rattle of her large fan it assisted them for the moment perhaps however that Millie was able to pick out of her sense what might serve as the clearest part of it you do like him then oh dear yes don't you Millie waited as the sudden point of something sharp on a nerve that winced she just caught her breath but she had ground for joy afterwards she felt in not really having failed to choose with quickness sufficient out of 15 possible answers the one that would best serve her she was then almost proud as well that she had cheerfully smiled I did three times in New York so came and went in these simple words the speech that was to figure for her later on that night as the one she had ever uttered at cost her most she was to lie awake for the gladness of not having taken any line so really inferior as the denial of a happy impression for Mrs. Loader also moreover her simple words were the right ones they were at any rate that ladies laugh showed in the natural note of the racy you dear American thing but people may be very good and yet not good for what one wants yes the girl assented even I suppose when what one wants is something very good oh my child it would take too long just now to tell you all I want I want I want everything at once and together and ever so much for you too you know but you've seen us aunt mode continue you'll have made out ah said Millie I don't make out for again it came that way in rushes she felt an obscurity in things why if our friend here doesn't like him should I conceive her interested in keeping things from me Mrs. Loader did justice to the question my dear how can you ask put yourself in her place she meets me but on her terms proud young women are proud young women and proud old ones are well what I am fond of US we both are you can help us Millie tried to be inspired does it come back then to my asking her straight at this however finally aunt mode threw her up oh if you so many reasons not I'm not so many Millie smile but I won if I break out so suddenly on my knowing him what will she make of my not having spoken before Mrs. Loader look blank at it why should you care what she makes you may have only been decently discreet ah I have been the girl made haste to say besides her friend went on I suggested to you through Susan your line yes that reasons a reason for me and for me Mrs. Loader insisted she's not their fault so stupid as not to do justice to ground so smart you can tell her perfectly that I had asked you to say nothing and may I tell her that you've asked me now to speak Mrs. Loader might well have thought yet oddly this pulled her up you can't do that without Millie was almost ashamed to be racing so many difficulties I'll do what I can if you'll kindly tell me one thing more she faltered a little it was so prying but she brought it out will he have been writing to her it's exactly my dear what I should like to know Mrs. Loader was at last impatient push in for yourself and I dare say she'll tell you even now all the same Millie had not quite fallen back it will be pushing in she continued to smile for you she allowed her companion however no time to take this up the point will be that if he has been writing she may have answered but what point you subtle thing is that isn't subtle it seems to me but quite simple Millie said that if she has answered she has very possibly spoken of me very certainly indeed but what difference will it make the girl had a moment at this of thinking in natural Mrs. Loader herself should so fail of subtlety it will make the difference that he'll have written her lie that he knows me and that in turn our young woman explained will give an oddity to my own silence how so if she's perfectly aware of having given you no opening the only oddity Aunt Maude Lucidly professed is for yourself it's in her not having spoken and there we are and she had uttered it evidently in a tone that struck her friend then it has troubled you but the inquiry had only to be made to bring the rare color with fine inconsequence to her face not really the least little bit and quickly feeling the need to abound in this sense she was on the point to cut short of declaring that she cared after all only she felt at this instant to the intervention of still other things Mrs. Loader was in the first place already beforehand already affected as by the sudden vision of her having herself pushed too far Millie could never judge from her face of her uppermost motive it was so little in its hard smooth sheen that kind of human countenance she looked hard when she spoke fair the only thing was that when she spoke hard she didn't likewise look soft something nonetheless had arisen in her now a full appreciable tide entering by the rupture of some bar she announced that if what she had asked was to prove in the least a bore her young friend was not a dream of it making her young friend at the same time by the change in her tone more profusely she spoke with a belated light Millie could apprehend she could always apprehend from pity and the result of that perception for the girl was singular it proved to her as quickly that Kate keeping her secret had been straight with her from Kate distinctly then as to why she was to be pitted Aunt Maude knew nothing and was thereby simply putting in evidence the fine side of her own character this fine side was that she could almost at any hour by a kindled preference or a diverted energy glow for another interest than her own she exclaimed as well at this moment that Millie must have been thinking round the case much more than she had supposed and this remark could affect the girl as quickly and as sharply as any other form of the charge of weakness it was what everyone if she didn't look out would soon be saying there's something the matter with you what one was therefore one self concerned immediately to establish was that there was nothing at all I shall like to help you I shall like so far as that goes to help Kate herself she made such haste as she could to declare her eyes wandering across the width of the room to that dusk of the balcony in which their companion perhaps a little unaccountably lingered she suggested hereby her impatience to begin she almost overtly wondered at the length of the opportunity this friend was giving them referring it however so far as words went to the other friend and breaking off with an amused how tremendously Susie it only marked aunt Maude nonetheless as to preoccupied for a revolution the onyx eyes were fixed upon her with a polished pressure that must signify some enriched benevolence let it go my dear we shall after all soon enough see if he has come back we shall certainly see merely after a moment replied for he'll probably feel that quite civilly not come to see me then there she remarked we shall be it wouldn't then you see come through Kate at all it would come through him except she wound up with a smile that he won't find me she had the most extraordinary sense of interesting her guest in spite of herself more than she wanted it was as if her doom wouldn't stop by very much the same trick it had played her with her doctor shall you run away from him she neglected the question wanting only now to get off then she went on you'll deal with Kate directly shall you run away from her Mrs. Loder profoundly inquired while they became aware of Susie's return through the room opening out behind them in which they had dined this affected merely as giving her but an instant and suddenly with it everything she felt in the connection rose to her lips for a question that even as she put it she knew she was failing to keep colorless is it your own belief that he is with her Aunt Maude took it in took in that is everything of the tone that she just wanted her not to and the result for some seconds was but to make their eyes meet in silence Mrs. Stringham had rejoined them and was asking if Kate had gone an inquirer at once answered by this young lady's reappearance they saw her again in the open window where looking at them she had paused producing thus on Aunt Maude's part almost too impressive a hush Mrs. Loder indeed of time smothered any danger in a sweeping retreat with Susie but merely's words to her just uttered about dealing with her niece directly struck our young woman as already recoiling on herself directness however evaded would be fully for her nothing in fact would ever have been for her so direct as the evasion Kate had remained in the window very handsome and upright the outer dark framing in a highly favorable way her summary simplicities and lightnesses of dress Millie had given the relation of space no real fear she had heard their talk only she who were there as with conscious eyes and some added advantage then indeed with small delay her friends sufficiently saw her size the added advantage were but those she had now always had command those proper to the person Millie knew as known to Merton Densher it was for several seconds again as if the total of her identity had been that of the person known to him a determination having for result another sharpness of its own Kate had positively been there just as she was to tell her he had come back it seemed to pass between them in fine without a word that he was in London that he was perhaps only around the corner and surely therefore no dealing of Millie's with her would yet have been so direct end of book fifth chapter five read by Lars Rolander book fifth chapter six of the Wings of the Dove this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander the Wings of the Dove by Henry James book fifth chapter six it was doubtless because this square form of directness had in itself for the hour seemed so sufficient that Millie was afterwards aware of having really all the while during the strange indescribable session before the return of their companions done nothing to intensify it if she was most aware only afterwards under the long and discurteined amorous dawn that was because she had really till their evening's end came ceased after a little to miss anything from their ostensible comfort what was behind showed but in gleams and glimpses what was in front never at all confessed to not holding the stage three minutes hadn't passed before Millie quite knew she should have done nothing for her she knew it moreover by much the same light that had acted for her with that lady and with Sir Luke's threat it pressed upon her then and there that she was still in a current determined through her indifference, timidity, bravery, generosity she scarce could say which by others that not she but the current acted and that somebody else or the dam Kate for example had but to open the floodgate the current moved in its mass the current as it had been of her doing as Kate wanted what somehow in the most extraordinary way in the world had Kate wanted but to be of a sudden more interesting than she had ever been Millie for their evening then quite held her breath with the appreciation of it she hadn't been sure her companion would have had nothing from her moments with Mrs. Loader to go by she would almost have seen the admirable creature cutting in to anticipate a danger this fantasy indeed while they sat together dropped after little even if only because other fantasies multiplied and clustered making fairly for our young woman the buoyant medium they sat together I say but Kate moved as much as she talked she figured there restless and charming just perhaps a shade perfunctory repeatedly quitting her place taking slowly to and fro in the trailing folds of her light dress the length of the room almost avowedly performing for the pleasure of her hostess Mrs. Loader had said to Millie at Machham that she and her as allies could practically conquer the world but though it was a speech about which there had even then been a vague grand glamour the girl read into it at present more of an approach to a meaning Kate for that matter by herself could conquer anything and she Millie Thiel was probably concerned with the world only as the small scrap of it that most impinged on her and that was therefore first to be dealt with on this basis of being dealt with she would doubtless herself do her share of the conquering she would have something to supply Kate something to take each of them thus to that tune something for squaring without Maud's idea this in short was what it came to now that the occasion in the quiet late lamplight had the quality of a rough rehearsal of the possible big drama Millie knew herself dealt with handsomely completely she surrendered to the knowledge for so it was she felt that she supplied her helpful force and what Kate had to take Kate took as freely and to all appearance as gratefully accepting a fresh with each of her long slow walks the relation between them so established and consecrating her companions surrender simply by the interest she gave it the interest to Millie herself we naturally mean the interest to Kate Millie felt as probably inferior it easily and largely came for their present talk for the quick flight of the hour before the breach of the spell it all came when considered from the circumstance not in the least abnormal that the handsome girl was in extraordinary form Millie remembered her having said that she was at her best late at night remembered it by its having with its fine assurance made her wonder when she was at her best and how happy people must be who had such a fixed time she had no time at all she was never at her best unless indeed it were exactly as now in listening, watching, admiring, collapsing if Kate moreover quite mercilessly had never been so good the beauty and the marvel of it was that she had never really been so frank being a person of such a caliber as Millie would have said that even while dealing with you and thereby as it were picking her steps she could let herself go could in irony in confidence in extravagance tell you things she had never told before that was the impression that she was telling things and quite conceivably for her own relief as well almost as if the errors of vision the mistakes of proportion the residuary innocence of spirit still to be remedied on the part of her auditor had their moments of proving too much for her nerves she went at them just now these sources of irritation with an amused energy that it would have been open to Millie to regard a cynical and that was nevertheless called for as to this the other was distinct by the way that in certain connections the American mind broke down it seemed at least the American mind is sitting there thrilled and dazzled in Millie not to understand English society without a separate confrontation with all the cases it couldn't proceed by there was some technical term she lacked until Millie suggested both analogy and induction and then differently instinct none of which were right it had to be led up and introduced to each aspect of the monster enabled to walk all round it whether for the consequent exaggerated ecstasy or for the still more as appear to this critic disproportionate chock it might the monster Kate conceded loom large for those born amid forms less developed and therefore no doubt less amusing it might on some sites be a strange and dreadful monster calculated to devour unworthy to base the proud to scandalize the good but if one had to live with it one must not to be forever sitting up learn how which was virtually in short tonight what the handsome girl showed herself as teaching she gave away publicly in this process Lancaster gate and everything it contain she gave away hand over hand Millie's thrill continued to note and at Maud's glorious and on Maud's complacencies she gave herself away most of all and it was naturally what most contributed to her candor she didn't speak to a friend once more in aunt Maud's train of how they could scale the skies she spoke by a bright perverse preference on this occasion of the need in the first place of being neither stupid nor vulgar a lesson for a young American in the art of seeing things as they were a lesson so various and so sustained that the pupil had as we have shown but receptively to gape the odd thing furthermore was that it could serve its purpose while explicitly disabowing every personal bias it wasn't that she disliked aunt Maud who was everything she had on other occasions declared the dear woman ineffacibly stamped by inscrutable nature and a dreadful art wasn't how could she be what she wasn't she wasn't anyone she wasn't anything she wasn't anywhere Millie mustn't think it one couldn't as a good friend letter those hours at matcha were inesperis were pure mana from heaven or if not fully that perhaps with humbugging old Lord Mark as a backer were vain as a ground for hopes and calculations Lord Mark was very well but he wasn't the cleverest creature in England and even if he had been he still wouldn't have been the most obliging he waded out in ounces and indeed each of the pair was really waiting for what the other would put down she has put down you said Millie attached to the subject still and I think what you mean is that on the counter she still keeps hold of you lest Kate took it up he should suddenly grab me and run oh as he isn't ready to run he's much less ready naturally to grab I am you're so far right as that on the counter when I'm not in the shop window which I'm thus conveniently commercially whisked the essence all of it of my position and the price as properly of my aunt's protection Lord Mark was substantially what she had begun with as soon as they were alone the impression was even yet with Millie over having sounded his name having imposed it as a topic in direct opposition to the other name and that all her own look as we have seen kept there at first for her companion the immediate strange effect had been that of her consciously needing as it were an alibi which successfully she found she had worked it to the end ridden it to and fro across the course marked for Millie by aunt Maude and now she had quite so to speak broken it in is that if she wants him so much wants him heaven forgive her for me he has put us all out since your arrival by wanting somebody else I don't mean somebody else than you Millie threw off the charm sufficiently to shake her head then I haven't made out who it is if I'm any part of his alternative he had better stop where he is truly truly always always Millie tried to insist with an equal gaity would you like me to swear Kate appeared for a moment though that was doubtless but gaity too to think haven't we been swearing enough you have perhaps but I haven't and I ought to give you the equivalent truly truly as you say always always so I'm not in the way thanks said Kate but that doesn't help me oh it's a simplifying for him that I speak of it the difficulty really is that he's a person with so many ideas that it's particularly hard to simplify for him that's exactly of course what aunt Maude has been trying Kate firmly continued make up his mind about me well Millie smiled give him time her friend met it in perfection once doing that one is but one remains all the same but one of his ideas there's no harm in that Millie returned if you come out in the end as the best of them what's a man she pursued an ambitious one without a variety of ideas no doubt the more the merrier and Kate looked at her grandly one can but hope to come out and do nothing to prevent it all of which made for the impression fantastic or not of the alibi the splendor, the grandeur were for Millie the bold ironic spirit behind it so interesting too in itself what further was not less interesting was the fact as our young woman noted it that Kate confined her point to the difficulties so far as she was concerned raised only by Lord Mark she referred now to none that her own taste might present which circumstance again played its little part she was doing what she liked in respect to another person but she was in no way committed to the other person and her more of a talking of Lord Mark as not young and not true were only the signs of her clear self-consciousness were all in the line of her slightly hard but scarce the less graceful extravagance she didn't wish to show too much her consent to be arranged for but that was a different thing from not wishing sufficiently to give it there was something on it all as well that Millie still found occasion to say if your aunt has been as you tell me put out by me I feel she has remained remarkably kind oh but she has whatever might have happened in that respect plenty of use for you you put her in my dear more than you put her out you don't half see it but she has clutched your petticoat you can do anything you can do but you can't you're an outsider independent and standing by yourself you're not hideously relative to tires and tires of others and Kate facing in that direction went further and further wound up by Millie Kate with extraordinary words we're of no use to you it's decent to tell you you'd be of use to us but that's a different matter my honest advice to you would be she went indeed all lengths to drop us while you can it would be funny if you didn't soon see how awfully better you can do we've not really done for you the least thing worth speaking of nothing you might not easily have had in some other way therefore you're under no obligation you won't want us next year we shall only continue to want you but that's no reason for you and you mustn't pay too dreadfully for poor Mrs. Stringhams having let you in she has the best conscience in the world she's enchanted with what she has done but you shouldn't take your people from her it has been quite awful to see you do it Millie tried to be mused so as not it was too absurd to be fairly frightened strange enough indeed if not natural enough that late at night thus in a mere mercenary house with Susie away a want of confidence should possess her she recalled with all the rest of it the next day piecing things together in the dawn that she had felt herself alone with a creature who paced like a panther that was a violent image a little less ashamed of having been scared for all her scare nonetheless she had now the sense to find words and yet without Susie I shouldn't have had you it had been at this point however that Kate flickered highest oh you may very well loathe me yet really at last thus it had been too much as with her own noble flair after a wandering watch Millie had shown she hadn't cared she had too much wanted to know and though a small solemnity of remonstrance a somber strain had broken into her tone it was to figure as her nearest approach to serving Mrs. Loader why do you say such things to me this unexpectedly had acted by a sudden turn as a happy speech she had risen as she spoke and Kate had stopped before her shining at her instantly with a softer brightness poor Millie hereby enjoyed one of her views of her people wincing oddly were often touched by her because you're a dove with which she felt herself ever so delicately so considerably embraced not with familiarity or assert liberty taken but almost ceremonially and in the manner of an accolade partly as if though a dove who could perch on a finger one were also princess with whom forms were to be observed it even came to her through the touch of her companion slips that this form this cool pressure fairly sealed the sense of what Kate had just said it was moreover for the girl like an inspiration she found herself accepting as the right one while she caught her breath with relief the name so given her she met it on the instant as she would have met revealed truth it lighted up the strange dusk in which she lately had walked that was what was the matter with her she was a dove and she it echoed within her as she became aware of the sound outside of the return of their friends there was the next thing little enough doubt about it after Aunt Maud had been two minutes in the room she had come up Mrs. Loader with Susan which she needn't have done at that hour instead of letting Kate come down to her in some way of the loose end they had left well the way she did catch was simply to make the point that it didn't now in the least matter she had mounted the stage for this and she had her moment again with her dunger hostess while Kate on the spot as the latter at the time noted gave Susan Shepard unwanted opportunities Kate was in other words to the handsomest response to Mrs. Stringam's impression of the scene they had just quitted it was in the tone of the fondest indulgence almost really that of dove coon to dove that Mrs. Loader expressed to Millie the hope that it had all gone beautifully her all had an ample benevolence it soothed and simplified she spoke as if it were the two young women not she and her comrade who had been facing the town together but Millie's answer had prepared itself while Aunt Maude was on the stair she had felt in a rush all the reasons that would make it the most dove-like and she gave it while she was about it as earnest as candid I don't think dear lady he's here it gave her straight way the measure of the success she could have as a dove that was recorded in the long look of deep criticism a look without a word that Mrs. Loader poured forth and the word presently bettered it still oh you exquisite thing the lucious in wind of it almost startling lingered in the room after the visitors had gone like an over sweet fragrance but left alone she continued to breathe it she studied again the dove-like and so set her companion to mere rich reporting that she averted all inquiry into her own case that with a new day was once more her law though she saw before her of course as something of a complication her need each time to decide she should have to be clear as to how a dove would act she settled it she thought well enough this morning by quite re-adopting her plan in respect to Sir Luke's threat that she was pleased to reflect had originally been pitched in the key of a merely iridescent drab and although Mrs. Stringham after breakfast began by staring at it as if it had been a priceless Persian carpet she was scruple at the end of five minutes in leaving her to make the best of it Sir Luke's threat comes by appointment to seem at eleven but I am going out on purpose he is to be told please deceptively that I am at home and you as my representative when he comes up are to see him instead he liked that this time better so do be nice to him it had taken naturally above all of the fact that the visitor was the greatest of doctors yet when once the key had been offered Susie slipped it on her bunch and her young friend could again feel her lovely imagination operate it operated in truth very much as Mrs. Loders at the last had done the night before it made the air heavy once more with the extravagance it might afresh almost have frightened our young woman to see how people rushed to meet her had she then so little time to live that the road must always be spared her it was as if they were helping her to take it out on the spot Susie she couldn't deny and didn't pretend to might of a truth on her side have treated such news as a flash merely lurid to see justice the pain of it was all there but nonetheless the margin always allowed her young friend was all there as well and the proposal now made her was what it in short but Byzantine the vision of Millie's perception of the propriety of the matter had at any rate quickly engulfed so far as her attitude was concerned any surprise and any shock the next thing perfectly to possess the facts Millie could easily speak on this as if there were only one she made nothing of such another as that she had felt herself menaced the great fact in fine was that she knew him to desire just now more than anything else to meet quite a part someone interested in her who therefore so interested as her faithful Susan the only other circumstance that by the time she had quitted her friend she had treated as worth mentioning was the circumstance of her having at first intended to keep quiet she had originally best seen herself a sweetly secretive as to that she had changed and her present request was the result she didn't say why she had changed her faithful Susan their visitor would trust her not less and she herself would adore their visitor moreover he wouldn't a girl felt sure tell her anything dreadful the worst would be that he was in love and that he needed a confident to work it and now she was going to the national gallery end of book fifth chapter six of the book