"And he cares so much?"

"Too much, too much. And my fear is," said
Mrs. Lowder, " that he privately besets her. She
keeps it to herself, but I don't want her worried.
Neither, in truth," she both generously and confiden
tially concluded, " do I want him"

Milly showed all her own effort to meet the case.
"But what can _I_ do?"

"You can find out where they are. If I myself
try," Mrs. Lowder explained, " I shall appear to
treat them as if I supposed them deceiving me."

"And you don t. You don t," Milly mused for
her, " suppose them deceiving you."

"Well," said Aunt Maud, whose fine onyx eyes
failed to blink, even though Milly's questions might
have been taken as drawing her rather further than
she had originally meant to go " well, Kate is thor
oughly aware of my views for her, and that I take
her being with me, at present, in the way she is with
me, if you know what I mean, as a loyal assent to
them. Therefore as my views don't happen to pro
vide a place, at all, for Mr. Densher, much, in a man
ner, as I like him " therefore, therefore in short
she had been prompted to this step, though she com
pleted her sense, but sketchily, with the rattle of her
large fan.

It assisted them perhaps, however, for the mo
ment, that Milly was able to pick out of her sense
what might serve as the clearest part of it. You
do like him then?"

[[290]]

p289 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p290w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p291

v?