right to personal happiness, any right to anything
but to be as rich and overflowing, as smart and
shining, as I can be made."

Densher had a pause. " Oh, you might, with
good luck, have the personal happiness too."

Her immediate answer to this was a silence like
his own; after which she gave him straight in the
face, but quite simply and quietly: " Darling!"

It took him another moment; then he was also
quiet and simple. " Will you settle it by our being
married to-morrow as we can, with perfect ease,
civilly?"

"Let us wait to arrange it," Kate presently re
plied, " till after you ve seen her."

"Do you call that adoring me? " Densher de
manded.

They were talking, for the time, with the strang
est mixture of deliberation and directness, and
nothing could have been more in the tone of it
than the way she at last said: " You re afraid of
her yourself."

He gave a smile a trifle glassy. " For young per
sons of a great distinction and a very high spirit,
we re a caution!"

"Yes," she took it straight up; "we re hide
ously intelligent. But there's fun in it too. We
must get our fun where we can. I think," she
added, and for that matter, not without courage,
"our relation's beautiful. It's not a bit vulgar. I
cling to some saving romance in things."

[[81]]

p080 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p081w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p082

v?