THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
in the very degree in which, in Venice, she had struck him as expert. He smiled over his plea for a renewal with stages and steps, a thing shaded, as they might say, and graduated; though—finely as she must respond—she met the smile but as she had met his entrance five minutes before. Her soft gravity at that moment—which was yet not solemnity, but the look of a consciousness charged with life to the brim and wishing not to overflow—had not qualified her welcome; what had done this being much more the presence in the room, for a couple of minutes, of the footman who had introduced him and who had been interrupted in preparing the tea-table.
Mrs. Lowder's reply to Densher's note had been to appoint the tea-hour, five o'clock on Sunday, for his seeing them. Kate had thereafter wired him, without a signature, "Come on Sunday before time—about a quarter-of-an-hour, which will help us"; and he had arrived therefore, scrupulously, at twenty minutes to five. Kate was alone in the room, and she had not delayed to tell him that Aunt Maud, as she had happily gathered, was to be, for the interval—not long, but precious—engaged with an old servant, retired and pensioned, who had been paying her a visit and who was, within the hour, to depart again for the suburbs. They were to have the scrap of time, after the withdrawal of the footman, to themselves, and there was a moment when, in spite of their wonderful system, in spite of the pro-
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