been instinctively hanging off to minimise, for you as well as for
myself, the appearances of rushing. There's a sort of fitness. But I
knew you'd understand." It was presently as if she really understood so
well that she almost appealed from his insistence--yet looking at him
too, he was not unconscious, as if this mastery of fitnesses was a
strong sign for her of what she had done to him. He might have struck
her as expert for contingencies in the very degree of her having in
Venice struck _him_ as expert. He smiled over his plea for a renewal
with stages and steps, a thing shaded, as they might say, and
graduated; though--finely as she must respond--she met the smile but as
she had met his entrance five minutes before. Her soft gravity at that
moment--which was yet not solemnity, but the look of a consciousness
charged with life to the brim and wishing not to overflow--had not
qualified her welcome; what had done this being much more the presence
in the room, for a couple of minutes, of the footman who had introduced
him and who had been interrupted in preparing the tea-table.

Mrs. Lowder's reply to Densher's note had been to appoint the tea-hour,
five o'clock on Sunday, for his seeing them. Kate had thereafter wired
him, without a signature, "Come on Sunday _before_ tea--about a quarter
of an hour, which will help us"; and he had arrived therefore
scrupulously at twenty minutes to five. Kate was alone in the room and
hadn't delayed to tell him that Aunt Maud, as she had happily gathered,
was to be, for the interval--not long but precious--engaged with an old
servant, retired and pensioned, who had been paying her a visit and who
was within the hour to depart again for the suburbs. They were to have
the scrap of time, after the withdrawal of the footman, to themselves,
and there was a moment when, in spite of their wonderful system, in
spite of the proscription of rushes and the propriety of shades, it
proclaimed itself indeed precious. And all without prejudice--that was
what kept it noble--to Kate's high sobriety and her beautiful
self-command. If he had his discretion she had her perfect manner,
which was _her_ decorum. Mrs. Stringham, he had, to finish with the
question of his delay, furthermore observed, Mrs. Stringham would have
written to Mrs. Lowder of his having quitted the place; so that it
wasn't as if he were hoping to cheat them. They'd know he was no longer
there.

"Yes, we've known it."

"And you