at, so long as the word never came--and it was,
on the basis he had arranged, impossible--he enjoyed the imagination of
mounting guard. He had never so mounted guard, Densher could see, as
during these minutes in the damp _loggia_ where the storm-gusts were
strong; and there came in fact for our young man, as a result of his
presence, a sudden sharp sense that everything had turned to the
dismal. Something had happened--he didn't know what; and it wasn't
Eugenio who would tell him. What Eugenio told him was that he thought
the ladies--as if their liability had been equal--were a "leetle"
fatigued, just a "leetle leetle," and without any cause named for it.
It was one of the signs of what Densher felt in him that, by a
profundity, a true deviltry of resource, he always met the latter's
Italian with English and his English with Italian. He now, as usual,
slightly smiled at him in the process--but ever so slightly this time,
his manner also being attuned, our young man made out, to the thing,
whatever it was, that constituted the rupture of peace.

This manner, while they stood a long minute facing each other over all
they didn't say, played a part as well in the sudden jar to Densher's
protected state. It was a Venice all of evil that had broken out for
them alike, so that they were together in their anxiety, if they really
could have met on it; a Venice of cold lashing rain from a low black
sky, of wicked wind raging through narrow passes, of general arrest and
interruption, with the people engaged in all the water-life huddled,
stranded and wageless, bored and cynical, under archways and bridges.
Our young man's mute exchange with his friend contained meanwhile such
a depth of reference that, had the pressure been but slightly
prolonged, they might have reached a point at which they were equally
weak. Each had verily something in mind that would have made a hash of
mutual suspicion and in presence of which, as a possibility, they were
more united than disjoined. But it was to have been a moment for
Densher that nothing could ease off--not even the formal propriety with
which his interlocutor finally attended him to the _portone_ and bowed
upon his retreat. Nothing had passed about his coming back, and the air
had made itself felt as a non-conductor of messages. Densher knew of
course, as he took his way again, that Eugenio's invitation to return
was not what he missed; yet he knew at the same time that what had
happened