"Without Miss Croy. Miss Croy," said Mrs. Lowder, "is spending her
Christmas in the bosom of her more immediate family."
He was afraid, even while he spoke, of what his face might show. "You
mean she has left you?"
Aunt Maud's own face for that matter met the enquiry with a
consciousness in which he saw a reflexion of events. He was made sure
by it, even at the moment and as he had never been before, that since
he had known these two women no confessed nor commented tension, no
crisis of the cruder sort would really have taken form between them:
which was precisely a high proof of how Kate had steered her boat. The
situation exposed in Mrs. Lowder's present expression lighted up by
contrast that superficial smoothness; which afterwards, with his time
to think of it, was to put before him again the art, the particular
gift, in the girl, now so placed and classed, so intimately familiar
for him, as her talent for life. The peace, within a day or two--since
his seeing her last--had clearly been broken; differences, deep down,
kept there by a diplomacy on Kate's part as deep, had been shaken to
the surface by some exceptional jar; with which, in addition, he felt
Lord Mark's odd attendance at such an hour and season vaguely
associated. The talent for life indeed, it at the same time struck him,
would probably have shown equally in the breach, or whatever had
occurred; Aunt Maud having suffered, he judged, a strain rather than a
stroke. Of these quick thoughts, at all events, that lady was already
abreast. "She went yesterday morning--and not with my approval, I don't
mind telling you--to her sister: Mrs. Condrip, if you know who I mean,
who lives somewhere in Chelsea. My other niece and her affairs--that I
should have to say such things to-day!--are a constant worry; so that
Kate, in consequence--well, of events!--has simply been called in. My
own idea, I'm bound to say, was that with _such_ events she need have,
in her situation, next to nothing to do."
"But she differed with you?"
"She differed with me. And when Kate differs with you--!"
"Oh I can imagine." He had reached the point in the scale of hypocrisy
at which he could ask himself why a little more or less should signify.
Besides, with the intention he had had he _must_ know. Kate's move, if
he didn't know, might simply disconcert him; and of being disconcerted
his horror was by this time fairly superstitious. "I hope you don't
allude to events at all calamitous."
"No--only horrid and vulgar."
"Oh!" said Merton Densher.
Mrs. Lowder's soreness, it was still not obscure, had discovered in
free speech to him a momentary balm. "They've the misfortune to have, I
suppose you know, a dreadful horrible father."
"Oh!" said Densher again.
"He's too bad almost to name, but he has come upon Marian, and Marian
has shrieked for help."
Densher wondered at this with intensity; and his curiosity compromised
for an instant with his discretion. "Come upon her--for money?"
"Oh for that of course always. But, at _this_ blessed season, for
refuge, for safety: for God knows what. He's _there_, the brute. And
Kate's with them. And that," Mrs. Lowder wound up, going down the
steps, "is her Christmas."
She had stopped again at the bottom while he thought of an answer.
"Yours then is after all rather better."
"It's at least more decent." And her hand once more came out. "But why
do I talk of _our_ troubles? Come if you can."