ed her head to
where their friend was again in range, and it made him turn his, so
that they watched a minute in concert. Milly, from the other side,
happened at the moment to notice them, and she sent across toward them
in response all the candour of her smile, the lustre of her pearls, the
value of her life, the essence of her wealth. It brought them together
again with faces made fairly grave by the reality she put into their
plan. Kate herself grew a little pale for it, and they had for a time
only a silence. The music, however, gay and vociferous, had broken out
afresh and protected more than interrupted them. When Densher at last
spoke it was under cover.

"I might stay, you know, without trying."

"Oh to stay _is_ to try."

"To have for herself, you mean, the appearance of it?"

"I don't see how you can have the appearance more."

Densher waited. "You think it then possible she may _offer_ marriage?"

"I can't think--if you really want to know--what she may _not_ offer!"

"In the manner of princesses, who do such things?"

"In any manner you like. So be prepared."

Well, he looked as if he almost were. "It will be for me then to
accept. But that's the way it must come."

Kate's silence, so far, let it pass; but she presently said: "You'll,
on your honour, stay then?"

His answer made her wait, but when it came it was distinct. "Without
you, you mean?"

"Without us."

"And you yourselves go at latest--?"

"Not later than Thursday."

It made three days. "Well," he said, "I'll stay, on my honour, if
you'll come to me. On your honour."

Again, as before, this made her momentarily rigid, with a rigour out of
which, at a loss, she vaguely cast about her. Her rigour was more to
him, nevertheless, than all her readiness; for her readiness was the
woman herself, and this other thing a mask, a stop-gap and a "dodge."
She cast about, however, as happened, and not for the instant in vain.
Her eyes, turned over the room, caught at a pretext. "Lady Wells is
tired of waiting: she's coming--see--to _us_."

Densher saw in fact, but there was a distance for their visitor to
cross, and he still had time. "If you decline to understand me I wholly
decline to understand you. I'll do nothing."

"Nothing?" It was as if she tried for the minute to plead.

"I'll do nothing. I'll go off before you. I'll go to-morrow."

He was to have afterwards the sense of her having then, as the phrase
was--and for vulgar triump