be hanged! And I must be sure."

She listened so well that she was really listening after he had ceased
to speak. He had kept his grasp of her, drawing her close, and though
they had again, for the time, stopped walking, his talk--for others at
a distance--might have been, in the matchless place, that of any
impressed tourist to any slightly more detached companion. On
possessing himself of her arm he had made her turn, so that they faced
afresh to Saint Mark's, over the great presence of which his eyes moved
while she twiddled her parasol. She now, however, made a motion that
confronted them finally with the opposite end. Then only she
spoke--"Please take your hand out of my arm." He understood at once:
she had made out in the shade of the gallery the issue of the others
from their place of purchase. So they went to them side by side, and it
was all right. The others had seen them as well and waited for them,
complacent enough, under one of the arches. They themselves too--he
argued that Kate would argue--looked perfectly ready, decently patient,
properly accommodating. They themselves suggested nothing worse--always
by Kate's system--than a pair of the children of a supercivilised age
making the best of an awkwardness. They didn't nevertheless hurry--that
would overdo it; so he had time to feel, as it were, what he felt. He
felt, ever so distinctly--it was with this he faced Mrs. Lowder--that
he was already in a sense possessed of what he wanted. There was more
to come--everything; he had by no means, with his companion, had it all
out. Yet what he was possessed of was real--the fact that she hadn't
thrown over his lucidity the horrid shadow of cheap reprobation. Of
this he had had so sore a fear that its being dispelled was in itself
of the nature of bliss. The danger had dropped--it was behind him there
in the great sunny space. So far she was good for what he wanted.

III

She was good enough, as it proved, for him to put to her that evening,
and with further ground for it, the next sharpest question that had
been on his lips in the morning--which his other preoccupation had
then, to his consciousness, crowded out. His opportunity was again
made, as befell, by his learning from Mrs. Stringham, on arriving, as
usual, with the close of day, at the palace, that Milly must fail them
again at dinner, but would to all appearance be able to come down
later. He had found Susan Shepherd alone in the great saloon, where