Miss Croy has been saying to me. _She_ keeps me up--she
has had so much to say about them."

He found pleasure in being able to give his hostess an account of his
passage with Kate that, while quite veracious, might be reassuring to
herself. But Aunt Maud, wonderfully and facing him straight, took it as
if her confidence were supplied with other props. If she saw his
intention in it she yet blinked neither with doubt nor with acceptance;
she only said imperturbably: "Yes, she'll herself do anything for her
friend; so that she but preaches what she practises."

Densher really quite wondered if Aunt Maud knew how far Kate's devotion
went. He was moreover a little puzzled by this special harmony; in face
of which he quickly asked himself if Mrs. Lowder had bethought herself
of the American girl as a distraction for him, and if Kate's mastery of
the subject were therefore but an appearance addressed to her aunt.
What might really _become_ in all this of the American girl was
therefore a question that, on the latter contingency, would lose none
of its sharpness. However, questions could wait, and it was easy, so
far as he understood, to meet Mrs. Lowder. "It isn't a bit, all the
same, you know, that I resist. I find Miss Theale charming."

Well, it was all she wanted. "Then don't miss a chance."

"The only thing is," he went on, "that she's--naturally now--leaving
town and, as I take it, going abroad."

Aunt Maud looked indeed an instant as if she herself had been dealing
with this difficulty. "She won't go," she smiled in spite of it, "till
she has seen you. Moreover, when she does go--" She paused, leaving him
uncertain. But the next minute he was still more at sea. "We shall go
too."

He gave a smile that he himself took for slightly strange. "And what
good will that do _me?_"

"We shall be near them somewhere, and you'll come out to us."

"Oh!" he said a little awkwardly.

"I'll see that you do. I mean I'll write to you."

"Ah thank you, thank you!" Merton Densher laughed. She was indeed
putting him on his honour, and his honour winced a little at the use he
rather helplessly saw himself suffering her to believe she could make
of it. "There are all sorts of things," he vaguely remarked, "to
consider."

"No doubt. But there's above all the great thing."

"And pray what's that?"

"Why the importance of your not losing the occasion of your life. I'm
treating you handsomely, I'm looking after it for you. I _c