"Very probably. But of _you_. Not of me."
This struck him as obscure. "How does she know me but as part and
parcel of you?"
"How?" Kate triumphantly asked. "Why exactly to make nothing of it, to
have nothing to do with it, to stick consistently to her line about it.
Aunt Maud's line is to keep all reality out of our relation--that is
out of my being in danger from you--by not having so much as suspected
or heard of it. She'll get rid of it, as she believes, by ignoring it
and sinking it--if she only does so hard enough. Therefore _she_, in
her manner, 'denies' it if you will. That's how she knows you otherwise
than as part and parcel of me. She won't for a moment have allowed
either to Mrs. Stringham or to Milly that I've in any way, as they say,
distinguished you."
"And you don't suppose," said Densher, "that they must have made it out
for themselves?"
"No, my dear, I don't; not even," Kate declared, "after Milly's so
funnily bumping against us on Tuesday."
"She doesn't see from _that_--?"
"That you're, so to speak, mad about me. Yes, she sees, no doubt, that
you regard me with a complacent eye--for you show it, I think, always
too much and too crudely. But nothing beyond that. I don't show it too
much; I don't perhaps--to please you completely where others are
concerned--show it enough."
"Can you show it or not as you like?" Densher demanded.
It pulled her up a little, but she came out resplendent. "Not where
_you_ are concerned. Beyond seeing that you're rather gone," she went
on, "Milly only sees that I'm decently good to you."
"Very good indeed she must think it!"
"Very good indeed then. She easily sees me," Kate smiled, "as very good
indeed."