Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/84

 "Oh!" he said a little awkwardly.

"I'll see that you do. I mean I'll write to you."

"Ah, thank you, thank you!" Merton Densher laughed. She was indeed putting him on his honour, and his honour winced a little at the use he rather helplessly saw himself suffering her to believe she could make of it. "There are all sorts of things," he vaguely remarked, "to consider."

"No doubt. But there's above all the great thing."

"And, pray, what's that?"

"Why, the importance of your not losing the occasion of your life. I'm treating you handsomely, I'm looking after it for you. I can—I can smooth, your path. She's charming, she's clever and she's good; And her fortune's a real fortune."

Ah, there she was, Aunt Maud! The pieces fell together for him as he felt her thus buying him off, and buying him—it would have been funny if it hadn't been so grave—with Miss Theale's money. He ventured, derisive, fairly to treat it as extravagant. I'm much obliged to you for the handsome offer"

"Of what doesn't belong to me?" She wasn't abashed. "I don't say it does—but there's no reason it shouldn't to you. Mind you, moreover"—she kept it up—"I'm not one who talks in the air. And you owe me something—if you want to know why."

Distinctly, he felt her pressure; he felt, given her 74