at the risk of its really bringing down the inquisi
tion?"

Well, the last clearness now filled her. " I'm not
afraid of the inquisition. If she asks if there's any
thing definite between us, I know perfectly what I
shall say."

"That I am, of course, gone for you?"

"That I love you as I shall never in my life love
any one else, and that she can make what she likes
of that." She said it out so splendidly that it was
like a new profession of faith, the fulness of a tide
breaking through; and the effect of that, in turn,
was to make her companion meet her with such eyes
that she had time again before he could otherwise
speak. " Besides, she's just as likely to ask you."

"Not while I'm away."

"Then when you come back."

"Well then," said Densher, " we shall have had
our particular joy. But what I feel is," he candidly
added, " that, by an idea of her own, her superior
policy, she won't ask me. She ll let me off. I
shan't have to lie to her."

"It will be left all to me? " asied Kate.

"All to you! " he tenderly laughed.

But it was, oddly, the very next moment as if he
had perhaps been a shade too candid. His dis
crimination seemed to mark a possible, a natural
reality, a reality not wholly disallowed by the ac
count the girl had just given of her own intention.
There was a difference in the air even if none

[[110]]

p109 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p110w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p111

v?