Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/223

 something in her own, apparently, that defeated the opportunity. He asked in a moment for something else instead, something that had been in his mind for a week, yet in respect to which he had had no chance so good as this. "Do you happen to know then, as such wonderful things pass between you, what she makes of the incident, the other day, of Lord Mark's so very superficial visit?—his having spent here, as I gather, but the two or three hours necessary for seeing our friend and yet taken no time at all, since he went off by the same night's train, for seeing any one else? What can she make of his not having waited to see you, or to see herself—with all he owes her?"

"Oh, of course," said Kate, "she understands. He came to make Milly his offer of marriage—he came for nothing but that. As Milly wholly declined it his business was for the time at an end. He couldn't quite on the spot turn round to make up to us."

Kate had looked surprised that, as a matter of taste on such an adventurer's part, Densher shouldn't see it. But Densher was lost in another thought. "Do you mean that when, turning up myself, I found him leaving her, that was what had been taking place between them?"

"Didn't you make it out, my dear?" Kate inquired.

"What sort of a blundering weathercock then is he?" the young man went on in his wonder. 213