wanted _more_ than to see Kate Croy was to see the witness
who had just arrived from Venice. He wanted positively to be in his
presence and to hear his voice--which was the spasm of his
consciousness that produced the flash. Fortunately for him, on the
spot, there supervened something in which the flash went out. He became
aware within this minute that the coachman on the box of the brougham
had a face known to him, whereas he had never seen before, to his
knowledge, the great doctor's carriage. The carriage, as he came
nearer, was simply Mrs. Lowder's; the face on the box was just the face
that, in coming and going at Lancaster Gate, he would vaguely have
noticed, outside, in attendance. With this the rest came: the lady of
Lancaster Gate had, on a prompting not wholly remote from his own,
presented herself for news; and news, in the house, she was clearly
getting, since her brougham had stayed. Sir Luke _was_ then back--only
Mrs. Lowder was with him.

It was under the influence of this last reflexion that Densher again
delayed; and it was while he delayed that something else occurred to
him. It was all round, visibly--given his own new contribution--a case
of pressure; and in a case of pressure Kate, for quicker knowledge,
might have come out with her aunt. The possibility that in this event
she might be sitting in the carriage--the thing most likely--had had
the effect, before he could check it, of bringing him within range of
the window. It wasn't there he had wished to see her; yet if she _was_
there he couldn't pretend not to. What he had however the next moment
made out was that if some one was there it wasn't Kate Croy. It was,
with a sensible shock for him, the person who had last offered him a
conscious face from behind the clear plate of a cafe in Venice. The
great glass at Florian's was a medium less obscure, even with the
window down, than the air of the London Christmas; yet at present also,
none the less, between the two men, an exchange of recognitions could
occur. Densher felt his own look a gaping arrest--which, he disgustedly
remembered, his back as quickly turned, appeared to repeat itself as
his special privilege. He mounted the steps of the house and touched
the bell with a keen consciousness of being habitually looked at by
Kate's friend from positions of almost insolent vantage. He forgot for
the time the moment when, in Venice, at the palace, the encouraged
young man had in a manner assisted at