Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/133

 does, I feel, trust me. He's considering," she repeated.

"He's, in other words, not sure?"

"Well, he's watching. I think that's what he means. She's to get away now, but to come back to him in three months."

"Then I think," said Maud Lowder, "that he oughtn't meanwhile to scare us."

It roused Susie a little, Susie being already enrolled in the great doctor's cause. This came out at least in her glimmer of reproach. "Does it scare us to enlist us for her happiness?"

Mrs. Lowder was rather stiff for it. "Yes; it scares me. I'm always scared—I may call it so—till I understand. What happiness is he talking about?"

Mrs. Stringham at this came straight. "Oh, you know!"

She had really said it so that her friend had to take it; which the latter in fact after a moment, showed herself as having done. A strange light humour in the matter even perhaps suddenly aiding, she met it with a certain accommodation. "Well, say one seems to see. The point is" But, fairly too full now of her question, she dropped.

"The point is will it cure?"

"Precisely. Is it absolutely a remedy—the specific?"

"Well, I should think we might know!" Mrs. Stringham delicately declared. 123