The Wings of the Dove, Henry James [thriller books to read .TXT] 📗

latter had in fact been dealt with, but it produced in him the thought that Kate might perhaps again conveniently be questioned. He would have liked to speak to her before going further⁠—to make sure she really meant him to succeed quite so much. With all the difference that, as we say, came up for him, it came up afresh, naturally, that he might make his visit brief and never renew it; yet the strangest thing of all was that the argument against that issue would have sprung precisely from the beautiful little eloquence involved in Milly’s avoidances.

Precipitate these well might be, since they emphasised the fact that she was proceeding in the sense of the assurances she had taken. Over the latter she had visibly not hesitated, for hadn’t they had the merit of giving her a chance? Densher quite saw her, felt her take it; the chance, neither more nor less, of help rendered him according to her freedom. It was what Kate had left her with: “Listen to him, I? Never! So do as you like.” What Milly “liked” was to do, it thus appeared, as she was doing: our young man’s glimpse of which was just what would have been for him not less a glimpse of the peculiar brutality of shaking her off. The choice exhaled its shy fragrance of heroism, for it was not aided by any question of parting with Kate. She would be charming to Kate as well as to Kate’s adorer; she would incur whatever pain could dwell for her in the sight⁠—should she continue to be exposed to the sight⁠—of the adorer thrown with the adored. It wouldn’t really have taken much more to make him wonder if he hadn’t before him one of those rare cases of exaltation⁠—food for fiction, food for poetry⁠—in which a man’s fortune with the woman who doesn’t care for him is positively promoted by the woman who does. It was as if Milly had said to herself: “Well, he can at least meet her in my society, if that’s anything to him; so that my line can only be to make my society attractive.” She certainly couldn’t have made a different impression if she had so reasoned. All of which, none the less, didn’t prevent his soon enough saying to her, quite as if she were to be whirled into space: “And now, then, what becomes of you? Do you begin to rush about on visits to country-houses?”

She disowned the idea with a headshake that, put on what face she would, couldn’t help betraying to him something of her suppressed view of the possibility⁠—ever, ever perhaps⁠—of any such proceedings. They weren’t at any rate for her now. “Dear no. We go abroad for a few weeks somewhere of high air. That has been before us for many days; we’ve only been kept on by last necessities here. However, everything’s done and the wind’s in our sails.”

“May you scud then happily before it! But when,” he asked, “do you come back?”

She looked ever so vague; then as if to correct it: “Oh when the wind turns. And what do you do with your summer?”

“Ah I spend it in sordid toil. I drench it with mercenary ink. My work in your country counts for play as well. You see what’s thought of the pleasure your country can give. My holiday’s over.”

“I’m sorry you had to take it,” said Milly, “at such a different time from ours. If you could but have worked while we’ve been working⁠—”

“I might be playing while you play? Oh the distinction isn’t so great with me. There’s a little of each for me, of work and of play, in either. But you and Mrs. Stringham, with Miss Croy and Mrs. Lowder⁠—you all,” he went on, “have been given up, like navvies or niggers, to real physical toil. Your rest is something you’ve earned and you need. My labour’s comparatively light.”

“Very true,” she smiled; “but all the same I like mine.”

“It doesn’t leave you ‘done’?”

“Not a bit. I don’t get tired when I’m interested. Oh I could go far.”

He bethought himself. “Then why don’t you?⁠—since you’ve got here, as I learn, the whole place in your pocket.”

“Well, it’s a kind of economy⁠—I’m saving things up. I’ve enjoyed so what you speak of⁠—though your account of it’s fantastic⁠—that I’m watching over its future, that I can’t help being anxious and careful. I want⁠—in the interest itself of what I’ve had and may still have⁠—not to make stupid mistakes. The way not to make them is to get off again to a distance and see the situation from there. I shall keep it fresh,” she wound up as if herself rather pleased with the ingenuity of her statement⁠—“I shall keep it fresh, by that prudence, for my return.”

“Ah then you will return? Can you promise one that?”

Her face fairly lighted at his asking for a promise; but she made as if bargaining a little. “Isn’t London rather awful in winter?”

He had been going to ask her if she meant for the invalid; but he checked the infelicity of this and took the enquiry as referring to social life. “No⁠—I like it, with one thing and another; it’s less of a mob than later on; and it would have for us the merit⁠—should you come here then⁠—that we should probably see more of you. So do reappear for us⁠—if it isn’t a question of climate.”

She looked at that a little graver. “If what isn’t a question⁠—?”

“Why the determination of your movements. You spoke just now of going somewhere for that.”

“For better air?”⁠—she remembered. “Oh yes, one certainly wants to get out of London in August.”

“Rather, of course!”⁠—he fully understood. “Though I’m glad you’ve hung on long enough for me to catch you. Try us at any rate,” he continued, “once more.”

“Whom do you mean by ‘us’?” she presently asked.

It pulled him up an instant⁠—representing, as he saw it might have seemed, an allusion to himself as conjoined with