an_--I can
smooth your path. She's charming, she's clever and she's good. And her
fortune's a real fortune."

Ah there she was, Aunt Maud! The pieces fell together for him as he
felt her thus buying him off, and buying him--it would have been funny
if it hadn't been so grave--with Miss Theale's money. He ventured,
derisive, fairly to treat it as extravagant. "I'm much obliged to you
for the handsome offer--"

"Of what doesn't belong to me?" She wasn't abashed. "I don't say it
does--but there's no reason it shouldn't to _you_. Mind you,
moreover"--she kept it up--"I'm not one who talks in the air. And you
owe me something--if you want to know why."

Distinct he felt her pressure; he felt, given her basis, her
consistency; he even felt, to a degree that was immediately to receive
an odd confirmation, her truth. Her truth, for that matter, was that
she believed him bribeable: a belief that for his own mind as well,
while they stood there, lighted up the impossible. What then in this
light did Kate believe him? But that wasn't what he asked aloud. "Of
course I know I owe you thanks for a deal of kind treatment. Your
inviting me for instance to-night--!"

"Yes, my inviting you to-night's a part of it. But you don't know," she
added, "how far I've gone for you."

He felt himself red and as if his honour were colouring up; but he
laughed again as he could. "I see how far you're going."

"I'm the most honest woman in the world, but I've nevertheless done for
you what was necessary." And then as her now quite sombre gravity only
made him stare: "To start you it _was_ necessary. From _me_ it has the
weight." He but continued to stare, and she met his blankness with
surprise. "Don't you understand me? I've told the proper lie for you."
Still he only showed her his flushed strained smile; in spite of which,
speaking with force and as if he must with a minute's reflexion see
what she meant, she turned away from him. "I depend upon you now to
make me right!"

The minute's reflexion he was of course more free to take after he had
left the house. He walked up the Bayswater Road, but he stopped short,
under the murky stars, before the modern church, in the middle of the
square that, going eastward, opened out on his left. He had had his
brief stupidity, but now he understood. She had guaranteed to Milly
Theale through Mrs. Stringham that Kate didn't care for him. She had
affirmed through the same source that the attachment was