not struck Densher that he had seen her to the
happiest purpose the poor facts flushed with a bet
ter meaning as Kate, one by one, took them up.

"If she consents to your coming, why isn't that
everything?"

"It is everything; everything she thinks it. It's
the probability I mean as Mrs. Lowder measures
probability that I may be prevented from becom
ing a complication for her by some arrangement,
any arrangement, through which you shall see me
often and easily. She's sure of my want of money,
and that gives her time. She believes in my having
a certain amount of delicacy, in my wishing to bet
ter my state before I put the pistol to your head
in respect to sharing it. The time that will take
figures for her as the time that will help her if she
doesn't spoil her chance by treating me badly. She
doesn't at all wish moreover," Densher went on,
"to treat me badly, for I believe, upon my honour,
funny as it may sound to you, that she personally
rather likes me, and that if you weren't in question
I might almost become her pet young man. She
doesn't disparage intellect and culture quite the
contrary; she wants them to adorn her board and
be named in her programme; and I'm sure it has
sometimes cost her a real pang that I should be so
desirable, at once, and so impossible." He paused
a moment, and his companion then saw that a
strange smile was in his face a smile as strange
even as the adjunct, in her own, of this informing

[[99]]

p098 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p099w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p100

v?