Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/279

 "Well then, I'm splendid."

"Oh, I don't need you to tell me that."

"I mean I'm capable of life."

"I've never doubted it."

"I mean," she went on, "that I want so to live!"

"Well?" he asked while she paused with the intensity of it.

"Well, that I know I can."

"Whatever you do?" He shrank from solemnity about it.

"Whatever I do. If I want to."

"If you want to do it?"

"If I want to live. I can," Milly repeated.

He had clumsily brought it on himself, but he hesitated with all the pity of it. "Ah then, that I believe."

"I will, I will," she declared; yet with the weight of it somehow turned for him to mere light and sound.

He felt himself smiling through a mist. "You simply must!"

It brought her straight again to the fact. "Well then, if you say it, why mayn't we pay you our visit?"

"Will it help you to live?"

"Every little helps," she laughed; "and it's very little for me, in general, to stay at home. Only I shan't want to miss it!"

"Yes?"—she had dropped again. 269