onveyed
the scene, just as hers equally embraced it. "Do you remember what you
originally said to me of her?"

"Ah I've said so many things."

"That she wouldn't smell of drugs, that she wouldn't taste of medicine.
Well, she didn't."

"So that it was really almost happy?"

It took him a long time to answer, occupied as he partly was in feeling
how nobody but Kate could have invested such a question with the tone
that was perfectly right. She meanwhile, however, patiently waited. "I
don't think I can attempt to say now what it was. Some day--perhaps.
For it would be worth it for us."

"Some day--certainly." She seemed to record the promise. Yet she spoke
again abruptly. "She'll recover."

"Well," said Densher, "you'll see."

She had the air an instant of trying to. "Did she show anything of her
feeling? I mean," Kate explained, "of her feeling of having been
misled."

She didn't press hard, surely; but he had just mentioned that he would
have rather to glide. "She showed nothing but her beauty and her
strength."

"Then," his companion asked, "what's the use of her strength?"

He seemed to look about for a use he could name; but he had soon given
it up. "She must die, my dear, in her own extraordinary way."

"Naturally. But I don't see then what proof you have that she was ever
alienated."

"I have the proof that she refused for days and days to see me."

"But she was ill."

"That hadn't prevented her--as you yourself a moment ago said--during
the previous time. If it had been only illness it would have made no
difference with her."

"She would still have received you?"

"She would still have received me."

"Oh well," said Kate, "if you know--!"

"Of course I know. I know moreover as well from Mrs. Stringham."

"And what does Mrs. Stringham know?"

"Everything."

She looked at him longer. "Everything?"

"Everything."

"Because you've told her?"

"Because she has seen for herself. I've told her nothing. She's a
person who does see."

Kate thought. "That's by her liking you too. She as well is prodigious.
You see what interest in a man does. It does it all round. So you
needn't be afraid."

"I'm not afraid," said Densher.

Kate moved from her place then, looking at the clock, which marked
five. She gave her attention to the tea-table, where Aunt Maud's huge
silver kettle, which had been exposed to its lamp and which she had not
soon enough noticed, was hissing too hard. "Well, it's all