Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/131

 "He didn't tell me."

"And you didn't ask?"

"I asked nothing," said poor Susie—"I only took what he gave me. He gave me no more than he had to—he was beautiful," she went on. "He is, thank God, interested."

"He must have been interested in you, dear," Maud Manningham observed with kindness.

Her visitor met it with candour. "Yes, love, I think he is. I mean that he sees what he can do with me."

Mrs. Lowder took it rightly. "For her."

"For her. Anything in the world he will or he must. He can use me to the last bone, and he likes at least that. He says the great thing for her is to be happy."

"It's surely the great thing for everyone. Why, therefore," Mrs. Lowder handsomely asked, "should we cry so hard about it?"

"Only," poor Susie wailed, "that it's so strange, so beyond us. I mean if she can't be."

"She must be." Mrs. Lowder knew no impossibles. "She shall be."

"Well—if you'll help. He thinks, you know, we can help."

Mrs. Lowder faced a moment, in her massive way, what Sir Luke Strett thought. She sat back there, her knees apart, not unlike a picturesque ear-ringed matron at a market-stall; while her friend, before her, dropped their items, tossed the separate truths of the 121