Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/100

 woman who doesn't care for him is positively promoted by the woman who does. It was as if Milly had said to herself: "Well, he can at least meet her in my society, if that's anything to him; so that my line can only be to make my society attractive." She certainly couldn't have made a different impression if she had so reasoned. All of which, none the less, didn't prevent his soon enough saying to her, quite as if she were to be whirled into space: "And now, then, what becomes of you? Do you begin to rush about on visits to countryhouses?"

She disowned the idea with a headshake that, put on what face she would, couldn't help betraying to him something of her suppressed view of the possibility—ever, ever perhaps—of any such proceedings. They weren't, at any rate, for her now. "Dear no—we go abroad for a few weeks, somewhere, of high air. That has been before us for many days; we've only been kept on by last necessities here. However, everything's done, and the wind's in our sails."

"May you scud then happily before it! But when," he asked, "do you come back?"

She looked ever so vague; then as if to correct it: "Oh, when the wind turns. And what do you do with your summer?"

"Ah, I spend it in sordid toil. I drench it with mercenary ink. My work in your country counts for play as well. You see what's thought of the 90