Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/112

 "Well, then, take example by her."

"She's really doing it for you," Densher continued. "She's driving me out for you."

"Well, then," said Kate, with her soft tranquillity, "you can do it a little for her. I'm not afraid," she smiled.

He stood before her a moment, taking in again the face she put on it and affected again, as he had already so often been, by more things in this face, and in her whole person and presence, than he was, to his relief, obliged to find words for. It wasn't, under such impressions, a question of words. "I do nothing for any one in the world but you. But for you I'll do anything."

"Good, good," said Kate. "That's how I like you."

He waited again an instant. "Then you swear to it?"

"To 'it'? To what?"

"Why, that you do 'like' me. For it's only for that, you know, that I'm letting you do—well, God knows what with me."

She gave at this, with a stare, a disheartened gesture—the sense of which she immediately further expressed. "If you don't believe in me then, after all, hadn't you better break off, before you've gone further?"

"Break off with you?"

"Break off with Milly. You might go now," she said, "and I'll stay and explain to her why it is." 102