THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
that he had, practically, after all, drawn from her—a declaration on which she then, recurring to her first idea, promptly acted.
"If you are as good as that, I go. You'll tell her that, finding you with her, I wouldn't wait. Say that, you know, from yourself. She'll understand."
She had reached the door with it—she was full of decision; but he had, before she left him, one more doubt. "I don't see how she can understand enough, you know, without understanding too much."
"You don't need to see."
He required then a last injunction. "I must sim ply go it blind?"
"You must simply be kind to her."
"And leave the rest to you?"
"Leave the rest to her," said Kate disappearing.
It came back then afresh to that, as it had come before. Milly, three minutes after Kate had gone, returned in her array—her big black hat, so little superstitiously in the fashion, her fine black garments throughout, the swathing of her throat, which Densher vaguely took for an infinite number of yards of priceless lace, and which, its folded fabric kept in place by heavy rows of pearls, hung down to her feet like the stole of a priestess. He spoke to her at once of their friend's visit and flight. "She hadn't known she would find me," he said—and said at present without difficulty. His corner was so turned that it wasn't a question of a word more or less.
She took this account of the matter as quite suf-
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