many directions, proceeded to various extremities.
Yet it now came over her as in a clear cold way that
there was a possible account of their relations in
which the quantity her new friend had told her might
have figured as small, as smallest, beside the quantity
she hadn t. She couldn't say, at any rate, whether
or no she had made the point that her aunt designed
her for Lord Mark: it had only sufficiently come
out which had been, moreover, eminently guessa-
ble that she was involved in her aunt's designs.
Somehow, for Milly, brush it over nervously as she
might and with whatever simplifying hand, this
abrupt extrusion of Mr. Densher altered all propor
tions, had an effect on all values. It was fantastic
of her to let it make a difference that she couldn't
in the least have defined and she was at least, even
during these instants, rather proud of being able to
hide, on the spot, the difference it did make. Yet,
all the same, the effect for her was, almost violently,
of Mr. Densher's having been there having been
where she had stood till now in her simplicity be
fore her. It would have taken but another free mo
ment to make her see abysses since abysses were
what she wanted in the mere circumstance of his
own silence, in New York, about his English friends.
There had really been in New York little time for
anything; but, had she liked, Milly could have made
it out for herself that he had avoided the subject of
Miss Croy, and that Miss Croy was yet a subject it
could never be natural to avoid. It was to be added

[[207]]

p206 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p207w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p208

v?