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

facts of the case were sufficiently ready for her. It took but two or three, however, given their importance, to lay the ground for the great one⁠—Mrs. Stringham’s interview of the day before with Sir Luke, who had wished to see her about Milly.

“He had wished it himself?”

“I think he was glad of it. Clearly indeed he was. He stayed a quarter of an hour. I could see that for him it was long. He’s interested,” said Mrs. Stringham.

“Do you mean in her case?”

“He says it isn’t a case.”

“What then is it?”

“It isn’t, at least,” Mrs. Stringham explained, “the case she believed it to be⁠—thought it at any rate might be⁠—when, without my knowledge, she went to see him. She went because there was something she was afraid of, and he examined her thoroughly⁠—he has made sure. She’s wrong⁠—she hasn’t what she thought.”

“And what did she think?” Mrs. Lowder demanded.

“He didn’t tell me.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“I asked nothing,” said poor Susie⁠—“I only took what he gave me. He gave me no more than he had to⁠—he was beautiful,” she went on. “He is, thank God, interested.”

“He must have been interested in you, dear,” Maud Manningham observed with kindness.

Her visitor met it with candour. “Yes, love, I think he is. I mean that he sees what he can do with me.”

Mrs. Lowder took it rightly. “For her.”

“For her. Anything in the world he will or he must. He can use me to the last bone, and he likes at least that. He says the great thing for her is to be happy.”

“It’s surely the great thing for everyone. Why, therefore,” Mrs. Lowder handsomely asked, “should we cry so hard about it?”

“Only,” poor Susie wailed, “that it’s so strange, so beyond us. I mean if she can’t be.”

“She must be.” Mrs. Lowder knew no impossibles. “She shall be.”

“Well⁠—if you’ll help. He thinks, you know, we can help.”

Mrs. Lowder faced a moment, in her massive way, what Sir Luke Strett thought. She sat back there, her knees apart, not unlike a picturesque ear-ringed matron at a market-stall; while her friend, before her, dropped their items, tossed the separate truths of the matter one by one, into her capacious apron. “But is that all he came to you for⁠—to tell you she must be happy?”

“That she must be made so⁠—that’s the point. It seemed enough, as he told me,” Mrs. Stringham went on; “he makes it somehow such a grand possible affair.”

“Ah well, if he makes it possible!”

“I mean especially he makes it grand. He gave it to me, that is, as my part. The rest’s his own.”

“And what’s the rest?” Mrs. Lowder asked.

“I don’t know. His business. He means to keep hold of her.”

“Then why do you say it isn’t a ‘case’? It must be very much of one.”

Everything in Mrs. Stringham confessed to the extent of it. “It’s only that it isn’t the case she herself supposed.”

“It’s another?”

“It’s another.”

“Examining her for what she supposed he finds something else?”

“Something else.”

“And what does he find?”

“Ah,” Mrs. Stringham cried, “God keep me from knowing!”

“He didn’t tell you that?”

But poor Susie had recovered herself. “What I mean is that if it’s there I shall know in time. He’s considering, but I can trust him for it⁠—because he does, I feel, trust me. He’s considering,” she repeated.

“He’s in other words not sure?”

“Well, he’s watching. I think that’s what he means. She’s to get away now, but to come back to him in three months.”

“Then I think,” said Maud Lowder, “that he oughtn’t meanwhile to scare us.”

It roused Susie a little, Susie being already enrolled in the great doctor’s cause. This came out at least in her glimmer of reproach. “Does it scare us to enlist us for her happiness?”

Mrs. Lowder was rather stiff for it. “Yes; it scares me. I’m always scared⁠—I may call it so⁠—till I understand. What happiness is he talking about?”

Mrs. Stringham at this came straight. “Oh you know!”

She had really said it so that her friend had to take it; which the latter in fact after a moment showed herself as having done. A strange light humour in the matter even perhaps suddenly aiding, she met it with a certain accommodation. “Well, say one seems to see. The point is⁠—!” But, fairly too full now of her question, she dropped.

“The point is will it cure?”

“Precisely. Is it absolutely a remedy⁠—the specific?”

“Well, I should think we might know!” Mrs. Stringham delicately declared.

“Ah but we haven’t the complaint.”

“Have you never, dearest, been in love?” Susan Shepherd enquired.

“Yes, my child; but not by the doctor’s direction.”

Maud Manningham had spoken perforce with a break into momentary mirth, which operated⁠—and happily too⁠—as a challenge to her visitor’s spirit. “Oh of course we don’t ask his leave to fall. But it’s something to know he thinks it good for us.”

“My dear woman,” Mrs. Lowder cried, “it strikes me we know it without him. So that when that’s all he has to tell us⁠—!”

“Ah,” Mrs. Stringham interposed, “it isn’t ‘all.’ I feel Sir Luke will have more; he won’t have put me off with anything inadequate. I’m to see him again; he as good as told me that he’ll wish it. So it won’t be for nothing.”

“Then what will it be for? Do you mean he has somebody of his own to propose? Do you mean you told him nothing?”

Mrs. Stringham dealt with these questions. “I showed him I understood him. That was all I could do. I didn’t feel at liberty to be explicit; but I felt, even though his visit so upset me, the comfort of what I had from you night before last.”

“What I spoke to you of in the carriage when we had left her with Kate?”

“You had seen, apparently, in three minutes. And now that he’s here, now that I’ve met him and had my impression of him, I feel,” said Mrs. Stringham, “that you’ve been magnificent.”

“Of course I’ve been magnificent. When,” asked Maud Manningham, “was I anything else? But Milly won’t be, you know, if she marries Merton Densher.”

“Oh it’s always magnificent to marry the man one loves. But we’re going fast!” Mrs. Stringham