ign on her part, however roundabout, to do one
nothing but good.

Densher had quite to steady himself not to be awestruck at the
immensity of the good his own friend must on all this evidence have
wanted to do him. Of one thing indeed meanwhile he was sure: Milly
Theale wouldn't herself precipitate his necessity of intervention. She
would absolutely never say to him: "_Is_ it so impossible she shall
ever care for you seriously?"--without which nothing could well be less
delicate than for him aggressively to set her right. Kate would be free
to do that if Kate, in some prudence, some contrition, for some better
reason in fine, should revise her plan; but he asked himself what,
failing this, _he_ could do that wouldn't be after all more gross than
doing nothing. This brought him round again to the acceptance of the
fact that the poor girl liked him. She put it, for reasons of her own,
on a simple, a beautiful ground, a ground that already supplied her
with the pretext she required. The ground was there, that is, in the
impression she had received, retained, cherished; the pretext, over and
above it, was the pretext for acting on it. That she now believed as
she did made her sure at last that she might act; so that what Densher
therefore would have struck at would be the root, in her soul, of a
pure pleasure. It positively lifted its head and flowered, this pure
pleasure, while the young man now sat with her, and there were things
she seemed to say that took the words out of his mouth. These were not
all the things she did say; they were rather what such things meant in
the light of what he knew. Her warning him for instance off the
question of how she was, the quick brave little art with which she did
that, represented to his fancy a truth she didn't utter. "I'm well for
_you_--that's all you have to do with or need trouble about: I shall
never be anything so horrid as ill for you. So there you are; worry
about me, spare me, please, as little as you can. Don't be afraid, in
short, to ignore my 'interesting' side. It isn't, you see, even now
while you sit here, that there aren't lots of others. Only do _them_
justice and we shall get on beautifully." This was what was folded
finely up in her talk--all quite ostensibly about her impressions and
her intentions. She tried to put Densher again on his American doings,
but he wouldn't have that to-day. As he thought of the way in which,
the other afternoon, before Kate, he had s