THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
the case of one's bad, the case of another's good. I don't see what you have to fear from any one else," she said, "save through your being foolish, this way, about me."
So she said, but she was aware the next moment of what he was making of what she didn't see. "Is it your idea—since we're talking of these things in these ways—that the young lady you describe in such superlative terms is to be had for the asking?"
"Well, Lord Mark, try. She is a great person. But don't be humble." She was almost gay.
It was this apparently, at last, that was too much for him. "But don't you really know?"
As a challenge, practically, to the commonest intelligence she could pretend to, it made her of course wish to be fair. "I 'know,' yes, that a particular person is very much in love with her."
"Then you must know, by the same token, that she's very much in love with a particular person."
"Ah, I beg your pardon!"—and Milly quite flushed at having so crude a blunder imputed to her. "You're wholly mistaken."
"It's not true?"
"It's not true."
His stare became a smile. "Are you very, very sure?"
"As sure as one can be"—and Milly's manner could match it—"when one has every assurance. I speak on the best authority."
180
