Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/184

 afraid of what might be eventually disagreeable in a compromised alliance, being a minor question. She believed she made out besides, wonderful girl, that he had never quite expected to have to protest, about anything, beyond his natural convenience—more, in fine, than his disposition and habits, his education as well, his personal moyens in short, permitted. His predicament was therefore one he couldn't like, and also one she willingly would have spared him had he not brought it on himself. No man, she was quite aware, could enjoy thus having it from her that he was not good for what she would have called her reality. It wouldn't have taken much more to enable her positively to make out in him that he was virtually capable of hinting—had his innermost feeling spoken—at the propriety rather, in his interest, of some cutting down, some dressing up, of the offensive real. He would meet that half-way, but the real must also meet him. Milly's sense of it for herself, which was so conspicuously, so financially supported, couldn't, or wouldn't, so accommodate him, and the perception of that fairly showed in his face, after a moment, like the smart of a blow. It had marked the one minute during which he could again be touching to her. By the time he had tried once more, after all, to insist, he had quite ceased to be so.

By this time she had turned from their window to make a diversion, had walked him through other rooms, appealing again to the inner charm of the 174