person and quite
on such a scale as to fill out the whole precinct. Densher's nerves,
absolutely his heart-beats too, had measured the change before he on
this occasion moved away.

The facts of physical suffering, of incurable pain, of the chance
grimly narrowed, had been made, at a stroke, intense, and this was to
be the way he was now to feel them. The clearance of the air, in short,
making vision not only possible but inevitable, the one thing left to
be thankful for was the breadth of Sir Luke's shoulders, which, should
one be able to keep in line with them, might in some degree interpose.
It was, however, far from plain to Densher for the first day or two
that he was again to see his distinguished friend at all. That he
couldn't, on any basis actually serving, return to the palace--this was
as solid to him, every whit, as the other feature of his case, the fact
of the publicity attaching to his proscription through his not having
taken himself off. He had been seen often enough in the Leporelli
gondola. As, accordingly, he was not on any presumption destined to
meet Sir Luke about the town, where the latter would have neither time
nor taste to lounge, nothing more would occur between them unless the
great man should surprisingly wait upon him. His doing that, Densher
further reflected, wouldn't even simply depend on Mrs. Stringham's
having decided to--as they might say--turn him on. It would depend as
well--for there would be practically some difference to her--on her
actually attempting it; and it would depend above all on what Sir Luke
would make of such an overture. Densher had for that matter his own
view of the amount, to say nothing of the particular sort, of response
it might expect from him. He had his own view of the ability of such a
personage even to understand such an appeal. To what extent could he be
prepared, and what importance in fine could he attach? Densher asked
himself these questions, in truth, to put his own position at the
worst. He should miss the great man completely unless the great man
should come to see him, and the great man could only come to see him
for a purpose unsupposable. Therefore he wouldn't come at all, and
consequently there was nothing to hope.

It wasn't in the least that Densher invoked this violence to all
probability; but it pressed on him that there were few possible
diversions he could afford now to miss. Nothing in his predicament was
so odd as that, incontestabl