"Does my pleasing her--does anything. I _can't_," he impatiently
declared, "please her."
Kate looked at him hard again, disappointed at his want of consistency;
but it appeared to determine in her something better than a mere
complaint. "Then _I_ can! Leave it to me." With which she came to him
under the compulsion, again, that had united them shortly before, and
took hold of him in her urgency to the same tender purpose. It was her
form of entreaty renewed and repeated, which made after all, as he met
it, their great fact clear. And it somehow clarified _all_ things so to
possess each other. The effect of it was that, once more, on these
terms, he could only be generous. He had so on the spot then left
everything to her that she reverted in the course of a few moments to
one of her previous--and as positively seemed--her most precious ideas.
"You accused me just now of saying that Milly's in love with you. Well,
if you come to that, I do say it. So there you are. That's the good
she'll do us. It makes a basis for her seeing you--so that she'll help
us to go on."
Densher stared--she was wondrous all round. "And what sort of a basis
does it make for my seeing _her?_"
"Oh I don't mind!" Kate smiled.
"Don't mind my leading her on?"