to you. When Aunt Maud wished them de
spatched, it was not to be done by deputy; it was
clearly always a matter reserved for her own hand.
But what made the girl wonder most was the
implications of so much diplomacy in respect to her
own value. What view might she take of her posi
tion in the light of this appearance that her com
panion feared so, as yet, to upset her? It was as
if Densher were accepted partly under the dread
that if he hadn't been she would act in resentment.
Hadn't her aunt considered the danger that she
would in that case have broken off, have seceded?
The danger was exaggerated she would have done
nothing so gross; but that, it seemed, was the way
Mrs. Lowder saw her and believed her to be reck
oned with. What importance therefore did she
really attach to her, what strange interest could
she take on their keeping on terms? Her father and
her sister had their answer to this even without
knowing how the question struck her; they saw
the lady of Lancaster Gate as panting to make her
fortune, and the explanation of that appetite was
that, on the accident of a nearer view than she had
before enjoyed, she had been charmed, been dazzled.
They approved, they admired in her one of the
belated fancies of rich, capricious, violent old wom
en the more marked, moreover, because the result
of no plot; and they piled up the possible results
for the person concerned. Kate knew what to think
of her own power thus to carry by storm; she saw

[[65]]

p064 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p065w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p066

v?