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

suspecting the easy complaints, of ignorant youth. It somewhat checked her, further, that the matter with her was what exactly as yet she wanted knowledge about; and she immediately declared, for conciliation, that if she were merely fanciful Kate would see her put to shame. Kate vividly uttered, in return, the hope that, since she could come out and be so charming, could so universally dazzle and interest, she wasn’t all the while in distress or in anxiety⁠—didn’t believe herself, in short, to be in any degree seriously menaced. “Well, I want to make out⁠—to make out!” was all that this consistently produced. To which Kate made clear answer: “Ah then, let us by all means!”

“I thought,” Milly said, “you would like to help me. But I must ask you, please, for the promise of absolute silence.”

“And how, if you are ill, can your friends remain in ignorance?”

“Well, if I am, it must of course finally come out. But I can go for a long time.” Milly spoke with her eyes again on her painted sister’s⁠—almost as if under their suggestion. She still sat there before Kate, yet not without a light in her face. “That will be one of my advantages. I think I could die without its being noticed.”

“You’re an extraordinary young woman,” her friend, visibly held by her, declared at last. “What a remarkable time to talk of such things!”

“Well, we won’t talk, precisely”⁠—Milly got herself together again. “I only wanted to make sure of you.”

“Here in the midst of⁠—!” But Kate could only sigh for wonder⁠—almost visibly too for pity.

It made a moment during which her companion waited on her word; partly as if from a yearning, shy but deep, to have her case put to her just as Kate was struck by it; partly as if the hint of pity were already giving a sense to her whimsical “shot,” with Lord Mark, at Mrs. Lowder’s first dinner. Exactly this⁠—the handsome girl’s compassionate manner, her friendly descent from her own strength⁠—was what she had then foretold. She took Kate up as if positively for the deeper taste of it. “Here in the midst of what?”

“Of everything. There’s nothing you can’t have. There’s nothing you can’t do.”

“So Mrs. Lowder tells me.”

It just kept Kate’s eyes fixed as possibly for more of that; then, however, without waiting, she went on. “We all adore you.”

“You’re wonderful⁠—you dear things!” Milly laughed.

“No, it’s you.” And Kate seemed struck with the real interest of it. “In three weeks!”

Milly kept it up. “Never were people on such terms! All the more reason,” she added, “that I shouldn’t needlessly torment you.”

“But me? what becomes of me?” said Kate.

“Well, you⁠—” Milly thought⁠—“if there’s anything to bear, you’ll bear it.”

“But I won’t bear it!” said Kate Croy.

“Oh yes, you will: all the same! You’ll pity me awfully, but you’ll help me very much. And I absolutely trust you. So there we are.” There they were, then, since Kate had so to take it; but there, Milly felt, she herself in particular was; for it was just the point at which she had wished to arrive. She had wanted to prove to herself that she didn’t horribly blame her friend for any reserve; and what better proof could there be than this quite special confidence? If she desired to show Kate that she really believed the latter liked her, how could she show it more than by asking her for help?

III

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 he yet placed at her service in a manner that she admired even more than she could meet it: so crystal-clean 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, had it not 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, proveably⁠—not just loosely and sociably. Literally, furthermore, it wouldn’t really depend on herself, Sir Luke Strett’s friendship, in the least; perhaps what made her most stammer and pant was its thus queerly 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 form of stating, of explaining, and threw herself, without violence, only with a supreme pointless quaver that had turned, the next instant, to an intensity of interrogative stillness, upon his general goodwill. His large, settled 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,