costing him sundry qualms; so that they couldn't both be quite just.
Either she was too easy or he had been too anxious. He didn't want at
all events to feel a fool for that. "I'm doing nothing--and shall not,
I assure you, do anything but what I'm told."

Their eyes met with some intensity over the emphasis he had given his
words; and he had taken it from her the next moment that he really
needn't get into a state. What in the world was the matter? She asked
it, with interest, for all answer. "Isn't she better--if she's able to
see you?"

"She assures me she's in perfect health."

Kate's interest grew. "I knew she would." On which she added: "It won't
have been really for illness that she stayed away last night."

"For what then?"

"Well--for nervousness."

"Nervousness about what?"

"Oh you know!" She spoke with a hint of impatience, smiling however the
next moment. "I've told you that."

He looked at her to recover in her face what she had told him; then it
was as if what he saw there prompted him to say: "What have you told
_her?_"

She gave him her controlled smile, and it was all as if they remembered
where they were, liable to surprise, talking with softened voices, even
stretching their opportunity, by such talk, beyond a quite right
feeling. Milly's room would be close at hand, and yet they were saying
things--! For a moment, none the less, they kept it up. "Ask _her_, if
you like; you're free--she'll tell you. Act as you think best; don't
trouble about what you think I may or mayn't have told. I'm all right
with her," said Kate. "So there you are."

"If you mean _here_ I am," he answered, "it's unmistakeable. If you
also mean that her believing in you is all I have to do with you're so
far right as that she certainly does believe in you."

"Well then take example by her."

"She's really doing it for you," Densher continued. "She's driving me
out for you."

"In that case," said Kate with her soft tranquillity, "you can do it a
little for _her_. I'm not afraid," she smiled.

He stood before her a moment, taking in again the face she put on it
and affected again, as he had already so often been, by more things in
this face and in her whole person and presence than he was, to his
relief, obliged to find words for. It wasn't, under such impressions, a
question of words. "I do nothing for any one in the world but you. But
for you I'll do anything."

"Good, good," said Kate. "That's how I like yo