Milly indeed at last couldn't say; so that she had really for the time
brought it along to the point so oddly marked for her by her visitor's
arrival, the truth that she was enviably strong. She carried this out,
from that evening, for each hour still left her, and the more easily
perhaps that the hours were now narrowly numbered. All she actually
waited for was Sir Luke Strett's promised visit; as to her proceeding
on which, however, her mind was quite made up. Since he wanted to get
at Susie he should have the freest access, and then perhaps he would
see how he liked it. What was between _them_ they might settle as
between them, and any pressure it should lift from her own spirit they
were at liberty to convert to their use. If the dear man wished to fire
Susan Shepherd with a still higher ideal, he would only after all, at
the worst, have Susan on his hands. If devotion, in a word, was what it
would come up for the interested pair to organise, she was herself
ready to consume it as the dressed and served dish. He had talked to
her of her "appetite" her account of which, she felt, must have been
vague. But for devotion, she could now see, this appetite would be of
the best. Gross, greedy, ravenous--these were doubtless the proper
names for her: she was at all events resigned in advance to the
machinations of sympathy. The day that followed her lonely excursion
was to be the last but two or three of their stay in London; and the
evening of that day practically ranked for them as, in the matter of
outside relations, the last of all. People were by this time quite
scattered, and many of those who had so liberally manifested in calls,
in cards, in evident sincerity about visits, later on, over the land,
had positively passed in music out of sight; whether as members, these
latter, more especially, of Mrs. Lowder's immediate circle or as
members of Lord Mark's--our friends being by this time able to make the
distinction. The general pitch had thus, decidedly, dropped, and the
occasions still to be dealt with were special and few. One of these,
for Milly, announced itself as the doctor's call already mentioned, as
to which she had now had a note from him: the single other, of
importance, was their appointed leave-taking--for the shortest
separation--in respect to Mrs. Lowder and Kate. The aunt and the niece
were to dine with them alone, intimately and easily--as easily as
should be consistent with the question of their afterwards going on
together to some absurdly belated party, at which they had had it from
Aunt Maud that they would do well to show. Sir Luke was to make his
appearance on the morrow of this, and in respect to that complication
Milly had already her plan.
The night was, at all events, hot and stale, and it was late enough by
the time the four ladies had been gathered in, for their small session,
at the hotel, where the windows were still open to the high balconies
and the flames of the candles, behind the pink shades--disposed as for
the vigil of watchers--were motionless in the air in which the season
lay dead. What was presently settled among them was that Milly, who
betrayed on this occasion a preference more marked than usual, should
not hold herself obliged to climb that evening the social stair,
however it might stretch to meet her, and that, Mrs. Lowder and Mrs.
Stringham facing the ordeal together, Kate Croy should remain with her
and await their return. It was a pleasure to Milly, ever, to send Susan
Shepherd forth; she saw her go with complacency, liked, as it were, to
put people off with her, and noted with satisfaction, when she so moved
to the carriage, the further denudation--a markedly ebbing tide--of her
little benevolent back. If it wasn't quite Aunt Maud's ideal, moreover,
to take out the new American girl's funny friend instead of the new
American girl herself, nothing could better indicate the range of that
lady's merit than the spirit in which--as at the present hour for
instance--she made the best of the minor advantage. And she did this
with a broad, cheerful absence of illusion; she did it--confessing even
as much to poor Susie--because, frankly, she _was_ good-natured. When
Mrs. Stringham observed that her own light was too abjectly borrowed
and that it was as a link alone, fortunately not missing, that she was
valued, Aunt Maud concurred to the extent of the remark: "Well, my
dear, you're better than nothing." To-night, furthermore, it came up
for Milly that Aunt Maud had something particular in mind. Mrs.
Stringham, before adjourning with her, had gone off for some shawl or
other accessory, and Kate, as if a little impatient for their
withdrawal, had wandered out to the balcony, where she hovered, for the
time, unseen, though with scarce more to look at than the dim London
stars and the cruder glow, up the street, on a corner, of a small
public-house, in front of which a fagged cab-horse was thrown into
relief. Mrs. Lowder made use of the moment: Milly felt as soon as she
had spoken that what she was doing was somehow for use.
"Dear Susan tells me that you saw, in America, Mr. Densher--whom I've
never till now, as you may have noticed, asked you about. But do you
mind at last, in connection with him, doing something for me?" She had
lowered her fine voice to a depth, though speaking with all her rich
glibness; and Milly, after a small sharpness of surprise, was already
guessing the sense of her appeal. "Will you name him, in any way you
like, to _her"_--and Aunt Maud gave a nod at the window; "so that you
may perhaps find out whether he's back?"
Ever so many things, for Milly, fell into line at this; it was a
wonder, she afterwards thought, that she could be conscious of so many
at once. She smiled hard, however, for them all. "But I don't know that
it's important to me to 'find out.'" The array of things was further
swollen, however, even as she said this, by its striking her as too
much to say. She therefore tried as quickly to say less. "Except you
mean, of course, that it's important to _you."_ She fancied Aunt Maud
was looking at her almost as hard as she was herself smiling, and that
gave her another impulse. "You know I never _have_ yet named him to
her; so that if I should break out now----"
"Well?"--Mrs. Lowder waited.
"Why, she may wonder what I've been making a mystery of. She hasn't
mentioned him, you know," Milly went on, "herself."
"No"--her friend a little heavily weighed it--"she wouldn't. So it's
she, you see then, who has made the mystery."
Yes, Milly but wanted to see; only there was so much. "There has been
of course no particular reason." Yet that indeed was neither here nor
there. "Do you think," she asked, "he is back?"
"It will be about his time, I gather, and rather a comfort to me
definitely to know."
"Then can't you ask her yourself?"
"Ah, we never speak of him!"
It helped Milly for the moment to the convenience of a puzzled pause.
"Do you mean he's an acquaintance of whom you disapprove for her?"
Aunt Maud, as well, just hung fire. "I disapprove of _her_ for the poor
young man. She doesn't care for him."
"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 confidentially
concluded, "do I want _him."_