m. Aunt Maud, if it's
necessary, will do that. I mean that, knowing nothing about me, he can
see me only as she sees me. She sees me now so well. He has nothing to
do with me."

"Except to reprobate you," Densher suggested.

"For not caring for _you?_ Perfectly. As a brilliant young man driven
by it into your relation with Milly--as all _that_ I leave you to him."

"Well," said Densher sincerely enough, "I think I can thank you for
leaving me to some one easier perhaps with me than yourself."

She had been looking about again meanwhile, the lady having changed her
place, for the friend of Mrs. Lowder's to whom she had spoken of
introducing him. "All the more reason why I should commit you then to
Lady Wells."

"Oh but wait." It was not only that he distinguished Lady Wells from
afar, that she inspired him with no eagerness, and that, somewhere at
the back of his head, he was fairly aware of the question, in germ, of
whether this was the kind of person he should be involved with when
they were married. It was furthermore that the consciousness of
something he had not got from Kate in the morning, and that logically
much concerned him, had been made more keen by these very moments--to
say nothing of the consciousness that, with their general smallness of
opportunity, he must squeeze each stray instant hard. If Aunt Maud,
over there with Sir Luke, noted him as a little "attentive," that might
pass for a futile demonstration on the part of a gentleman who had to
confess to having, not very gracefully, changed his mind. Besides, just
now, he didn't care for Aunt Maud except in so far as he was
immediately to show. "How can Mrs. Lowder think me disposed of with any
finality, if I'm disposed of only to a girl who's dying? If you're
right about that, about the state of the case, you're wrong about Mrs.
Lowder's being squared. If Milly, as you say," he lucidly pursued,
"can't deceive a great surgeon, or whatever, the great surgeon won't
deceive other people--not those, that is, who are closely concerned. He
won't at any rate deceive Mrs. Stringham, who's Milly's greatest
friend; and it will be very odd if Mrs. Stringham deceives Aunt Maud,
who's her own."

Kate showed him at this the cold glow of an idea that really was worth
his having kept her for. "Why will it be odd? I marvel at your seeing
your way so little."

Mere curiosity even, about his companion, had now for him its quick,
its slightly quaking intensities. He