Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/111

 She asked it, with interest, for all answer. "Isn't she better—if she's able to see you?"

"She assures me she's in perfect health."

Kate's interest grew. "I knew she would." On which she added: "It won't have been really for illness that she stayed away last night."

"For what then?"

"Well—for nervousness."

"Nervousness about what?"

"Oh, you know!" She spoke with a hint of impatience, smiling, however, the next moment. "I've told you that."

He looked at her to recover in her face what she had told him; then it was as if what he saw there prompted him to say: "What have you told her?"

She gave him her controlled smile, and it was all as if they remembered where they were, liable to surprise, talking with softened voices, even stretching their opportunity, by such talk, beyond a quite right feeling. Milly's room would be close at hand, and yet they were saying things! For a moment, none the less, they kept it up. "Ask her, if you like; you're free—she'll tell you. Act as you think best; don't trouble about what you think I may, or mayn't, have told. I'm all right with her," said Kate. "So there you are."

"If you mean here I am," he answered, "it's unmistakable. If you also mean that her believing in you is all I have to do with, you're so far right as that she certainly does believe in you." 101