Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/119

 XXII

Kate and Densher abandoned her to Mrs. Stringham on the day of her meeting them together and bringing them into luncheon, Milly, face to face with that companion, had had one of those moments in which the warned, the anxious fighter of the battle of life, as if once again feeling for the sword at his side, carries his hand straight to the quarter of his courage. She laid hers firmly on her heart, and the two women stood there showing each other a strange face. Susan Shepherd had received their great doctor's visit, which had been clearly no small affair for her; but Milly had since then, with insistence, kept standing, as against communication and betrayal, as she now practically confessed, the barrier of their invited guests. "You've been too dear. With what I see you're full of, you treated them beautifully. Isn't Kate charming when she wants to be?"

Poor Susie's expression, contending at first, as in a high, fine spasm, with different dangers, had now quite let itself go. She had to make an effort to reach a point in space already so remote. "Miss 109