THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
you—by not having so much as suspected or heard of it. She'll get rid of it, as she believes, by ignoring it and sinking it—if she only does so hard enough. Therefore she in her manner 'denies' it, if you will. That's how she knows you otherwise than as part and parcel of me. She won't for a moment have allowed either to Mrs. Stringham or to Milly that I've in any way, as they say, distinguished you."
"And you don't suppose," said Densher, "that they must have made it out for themselves?"
"No, my dear, I don't; not even," Kate declared, "after Milly's so funnily bumping against us on Tuesday."
"She doesn't see from that———?"
"That you're, so to speak, mad about me. Yes, she sees, no doubt, that you regard me with a complacent eye—for you show it, I think, always too much. But nothing beyond that. I don't show it too much; I don't perhaps—to please you completely where others are concerned—show it enough."
"Can you show it or not as you like?" Densher demanded.
It pulled her up a little, but she came out resplendent. "Not where you are concerned. Beyond seeing that you're rather gone," she went on, "Milly only sees that I'm decently good to you."
"Very good indeed she must think it!"
"Very good indeed then. She easily sees me," Kate smiled, "as very good indeed."
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