in that case Milly would interfere. I mean," Susie
added, "interfere with _you_."

"She interferes with me as it is--not that it matters now. But I saw
Kate and her--really as soon as you came to me--set up side by side. I
saw your girl--I don't mind telling--you helping my girl; and when I
say that," Mrs. Lowder continued, "you'll probably put in for yourself
that it was part of the reason of my welcome to you. So you see what I
give up. I do give it up. But when I take that line," she further set
forth, "I take it handsomely. So good-bye to it all. Good-day to Mrs.
Densher! Heavens!" she growled.

Susie held herself a minute. "Even as Mrs. Densher my girl will be
somebody."

"Yes, she won't be nobody. Besides," said Mrs. Lowder, "we're talking
in the air."

Her companion sadly assented. "We're leaving everything out."

"It's nevertheless interesting." And Mrs. Lowder had another thought.
"_He's_ not quite nobody either." It brought her back to the question
she had already put and which her friend hadn't at the time dealt with.
"What in fact do you make of him?"

Susan Shepherd, at this, for reasons not clear even to herself, was
moved a little to caution. So she remained general. "He's charming."

She had met Mrs. Lowder's eyes with that extreme pointedness in her own
to which people resort when they are not quite candid--a circumstance
that had its effect. "Yes; he's charming."

The effect of the words, however, was equally marked; they almost
determined in Mrs. Stringham a return of amusement. "I thought you
didn't like him!"

"I don't like him for Kate."

"But you don't like him for Milly either."

Mrs. Stringham rose as she spoke, and her friend also got up. "I like
him, my dear, for myself."

"Then that's the best way of all."

"Well, it's one way. He's not good enough for my niece, and he's not
good enough for you. One's an aunt, one's a wretch and one's a fool."

"Oh _I'm_ not--not either," Susie declared.

But her companion kept on. "One lives for others. _You_ do that. If I
were living for myself I shouldn't at all mind him."

But Mrs. Stringham was sturdier. "Ah if I find him charming it's
however I'm living."

Well, it broke Mrs. Lowder down. She hung fire but an instant, giving
herself away with a laugh. "Of course he's all right in himself."

"That's all I contend," Susie said with more reserve; and the note in
question--what Merton Densher was "in himself"--closed practically,
wi