THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
had, on his own side, feebly prepared for the crisis. He scrambled a little higher than the reference to money and clothes, letters and directions from his manager; but he brought out the beauty of the chance for him—there before him like a temptress painted by Titian—to do a little quiet writing. He was vivid, for a moment, on the difficulty of writing quietly in London; and he was precipitate, almost explosive, on his idea, long cherished, of a book.
The explosion lighted her face. "You'll do your book here?"
"I hope to begin it."
"It's something you haven't begun?"
"Well, only just."
"And since you came?"
She was so full of interest that he shouldn't perhaps after all be too easily let off. "I tried to think a few days ago that I had broken ground."
Scarcely anything, it was indeed clear, could have let him in deeper. "I'm afraid we've made an awful mess of your time."
"Of course you have. But what I'm hanging on for now is precisely to repair that ravage."
"Then you mustn't mind me, you know."
"You'll see," he tried to say with ease, "how little I shall mind anything."
"You'll want"—Milly had thrown herself into it—"the best part of your days."
He thought a moment; he did what he could to wreathe it in smiles. "Oh, I shall make shift with
266
