so definitely placed in the
world as while he waited with her for her half-dozen other guests. She
welcomed him genially back from the States, as to his view of which her
few questions, though not coherent, were comprehensive, and he had the
amusement of seeing in her, as through a clear glass, the outbreak of a
plan and the sudden consciousness of a curiosity. She became aware of
America, under his eyes, as a possible scene for social operations; the
idea of a visit to the wonderful country had clearly but just occurred
to her, yet she was talking of it, at the end of a minute, as her
favourite dream. He didn't believe in it, but he pretended to; this
helped her as well as anything else to treat him as harmless and
blameless. She was so engaged, with the further aid of a complete
absence of allusions, when the highest effect was given her method by
the beautiful entrance of Kate. The method therefore received support
all round, for no young man could have been less formidable than the
person to the relief of whose shyness her niece ostensibly came. The
ostensible, in Kate, struck him altogether, on this occasion, as
prodigious; while scarcely less prodigious, for that matter, was his
own reading, on the spot, of the relation between his companions--a
relation lighted for him by the straight look, not exactly loving nor
lingering, yet searching and soft, that, on the part of their hostess,
the girl had to reckon with as she advanced. It took her in from head
to foot, and in doing so it told a story that made poor Densher again
the least bit sick: it marked so something with which Kate habitually
and consummately reckoned.

That was the story--that she was always, for her beneficent dragon,
under arms; living up, every hour, but especially at festal hours, to
the "value" Mrs. Lowder had attached to her. High and fixed, this
estimate ruled on each occasion at Lancaster Gate the social scene; so
that he now recognised in it something like the artistic idea, the
plastic substance, imposed by tradition, by genius, by criticism, in
respect to a given character, on a distinguished actress. As such a
person was to dress the part, to walk, to look, to speak, in every way
to express, the part, so all this was what Kate was to do for the
character she had undertaken, under her aunt's roof, to represent. It
was made up, the character, of definite elements and touches--things
all perfectly ponderable to criticism; and the way for h