"Never for a moment; but I'm afraid that--even if it doesn't fit your
strange suppositions--I should have given him just the same answer if I
had known. If it's a matter I haven't, since your return, thrust upon
you, that's simply because it's not a matter in the memory of which I
find a particular joy. I hope that if I've satisfied you about it," she
continued, "it's not too much to ask of you to let it rest."
"Certainly," said Densher kindly, "I'll let it rest." But the next
moment he pursued: "He saw something. He guessed."
"If you mean," she presently returned, "that he was unfortunately the
one person we hadn't deceived, I can't contradict you."
"No--of course not. But _why_," Densher still risked, "was he
unfortunately the one person--? He's not really a bit intelligent."
"Intelligent enough apparently to have seen a mystery, a riddle, in
anything so unnatural as--all things considered and when it came to the
point--my attitude. So he gouged out his conviction, and on his
conviction he acted."
Densher seemed for a little to look at Lord Mark's conviction as if it
were a blot on the face of nature. "Do you mean because you had
appeared to him to have encouraged him?"
"Of course I had been decent to him. Otherwise where _were_ we?"
"'Where'--?"
"You and I. What I appeared to him, however, hadn't mattered. What
mattered was how I appeared to Aunt Maud. Besides, you must remember
that he has had all along his impression of _you_. You can't help it,"
she said, "but you're after all--well, yourself."
"As much myself as you please. But when I took myself to Venice and
kept myself there--what," Densher asked, "did he make of that?"
"Your being in Venice and liking to be--which is never on any one's
part a monstrosity--was explicable for him in other ways. He was quite
capable moreover of seeing it as dissimulation."
"In spite of Mrs. Lowder?"
"No," said Kate, "not in spite of Mrs. Lowder now. Aunt Maud, before
what you call his second descent, hadn't convinced him--all the more
that my refusal of him didn't help. But he came back convinced." And
then as her companion still showed a face at a loss: "I mean after he
had seen Milly, spoken to her and left her. Milly convinced him."
"Milly?" Densher again but vaguely echoed.
"That you were sincere. That it was _her_ you loved." It came to him
from her in such a way that he instantly, once more, turned, found
himself yet again at his window. "Aunt Maud, on his return here," she
meanwhile continued, "had it from him. And that's why you're now so
well with Aunt Maud."
He only for a minute looked out in silence--after which he came away.
"And why _you_ are." It was almost, in its extremely affirmative effect
between them, the note of recrimination; or it would have been perhaps
rather if it hadn't been so much more the note of truth. It was sharp
because it was true, but its truth appeared to impose it as an argument
so conclusive as to permit on neither side a sequel. That made, while
they faced each other over it without speech, the gravity of
everything. It was as if there were almost danger, which the wrong word
might start. Densher accordingly at last acted to better purpose: he
drew, standing there before her, a pocket-book from the breast of his
waistcoat and he drew from the pocket-book a folded letter to which her
eyes attached themselves. He restored then the receptacle to its place
and, with a movement not the less odd for being visibly instinctive and
unconscious, carried the hand containing his letter behind him. What he
thus finally spoke of was a different matter. "Did I understand from
Mrs. Lowder that your father's in the house?"
If it never had taken her long in such excursions to meet him it was
not to take her so now. "In the house, yes. But we needn't fear his
interruption"--she spoke as if he had thought of that. "He's in bed."
"Do you mean with illness?"
She sadly shook her head. "Father's never ill. He's a marvel. He's
only--endless."