Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/289

 the one thing he could unlimitedly take for granted in her.

He did so then, daily, for twenty days, without deepened fear of the undue vibration that was keeping him watchful. He was living at best, he knew, in his nervousness, from day to day, and from hand to mouth; but he had succeeded, he believed, in avoiding a mistake. All women had alternatives, and Milly's would doubtless be shaky too; but the national character was firm in her, whether as all of her, practically, by this time, or as but a part; the national character that, in a woman who was young, made of the air breathed a virtual non-conductor. It was not till a certain occasion when the twenty days had passed that, going to the palace at tea-time, he was met by the information that the signorina padrona was not "receiving." The announcement was made him, in the court, by one of the gondoliers, and made, he thought, with such a conscious eye as the knowledge of his freedoms of access, hitherto conspicuously shown, could scarce fail to beget. Densher had not been, at Palazzo Leporelli, among the receivable, but had taken his place once for all among the involved and included, so that on being so flagrantly braved he recognised after a moment the propriety of a further appeal. Neither of the two ladies, it appeared, received, and yet Pasquale was not prepared to say that either was not well. He was yet not prepared to say that either was well, and he would have been blank, Densher mentally 279