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Not to profit by it, so far as profit could be reckoned, would have been to go directly against it; and the spirit of generosity at present engendered in Densher could have felt no greater pang than by his having to go directly against Milly.
"Do you by any chance mean from me?" "No; I spoke to him of you, told him or what amounted to it that I would bring you, if he would allow it, with me." "But he won't allow it," said Densher. "Won't hear of it on any terms. He won't help me, won't save me, won't hold out a finger to me," Kate went on; "he simply wriggles away, in his inimitable manner, and throws me back."
The difficulty with Densher was that he looked vague without looking weak idle without looking empty.
That was why one could leave it to his tacit discretion, why for the three or four days Densher again and again did so leave it; merely wondering a little, at the most, on the eve of Saturday, the announced term of the episode.
"He's too bad almost to name, but he has come upon Marian, and Marian has shrieked for help." Densher wondered at this with intensity; and his curiosity compromised for an instant with his discretion. "Come upon her for money?" "Oh for that of course always. But, at this blessed season, for refuge, for safety: for God knows what. He's there, the brute. And Kate's with them. And that," Mrs.
Milly's royal ornament had under pressure now not wholly occult taken on the character of a symbol of differences, differences of which the vision was actually in Kate's face. It might have been in her face too that, well as she certainly would look in pearls, pearls were exactly what Merton Densher would never be able to give her. Wasn't that the great difference that Milly to-night symbolised?
If you're in love with her without it, what indeed can you be more? And you're afraid it's wonderful! to be in love with her." "I never was in love with her," said Densher. She took it, but after a little she met it. "I believe that now for the time she lived. I believe it at least for the time you were there.
Again leaving her while she never budged he paced five strides, and again he was before her. "By telling me this. It's something, you know, that you wouldn't tell me the other day." She was vague. "The other day?" "The first time after my return the Sunday I came to you. What's he doing," Densher went on, "at that hour of the morning with her? What does his having been with her there mean?"
This, in fact, Densher could himself feel, was exactly why he had so prepared it, and he had rejoiced, even while he waited, in all that the conditions had to say to him of their simpler and better time.
Conceal from Milly that an old engagement holds between her two friends, persuade her that neither has any interest in the other, and all will go well. Milly, believing in Densher's candour, will fall into the plot and enjoy her brief happiness. It cannot be more than brief, for Milly is certainly doomed. But when she dies, and Densher is free for Kate again, who will be the worse for the fraud?
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