Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/262

 "And you go yourselves, at latest?"

"Not later than Thursday."

It made three days. "Well," he said, "I'll stay, on my honour, if you'll come to me. On your honour."

Again, as before, this made her momentarily rigid, with a rigour out of which, at a loss, she vaguely cast about her. Her rigour was more to him, nevertheless, than all her readiness; for her readiness was the woman herself, and this other thing was a mask, a "dodge." She cast about, however, as happened, not, for the instant, in vain. Her eyes, turned over the room, caught at a pretext. "Lady Mills is tired of waiting: she's coming—see—to us." Densher saw in fact, but there was a distance for their visitor to cross, and he still had time. "If you decline to understand me I wholly decline to understand you. I'll do nothing."

"Nothing?" It was as if she tried for the minute to plead.

"I'll do nothing. I'll leave before you. I'll leave to-morrow."

He was to have afterwards the sense of her having then, as the phrase was—and for vulgar triumphs too—seen he meant it. She looked again at Lady Mills, who was nearer, but she quickly came back. "And if I do understand?"

"I'll do everything."

She found anew a pretext in her approaching friend: he was fairly playing with her pride. He had 252