THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
"at that hour of the morning with her? What does his having been with her there mean?"
"Of whom are you talking?"
"Of that man—Lord Mark of course. What does it represent?"
"Oh, with Aunt Maud?"
"Yes, my dear—and with you. It comes more or less to the same thing; and it's what you didn't tell me, the other day, when I put you the question."
Kate tried to remember. "You asked me nothing about any hour."
"I asked you when it was you last saw him—previous, I mean, to his second descent at Venice. You wouldn't say, and as we were talking of a matter comparatively more important, I let it pass. But the fact remains you know, my dear, that you haven't told me."
Two things, in this speech, appeared to have reached Kate more distinctly than the others. "I 'wouldn't say'?—and you 'let it pass'?" She looked just coldly blank. "You really speak as if I were keeping something back."
"Well, you see," Densher persisted, "you're not even telling me now. All I want to know," he, however, explained, "is if there was a connection between that proceeding, on his part, which was practically—oh, beyond all doubt!—the shock precipitating for her what has now happened, and anything that had occurred with him previously for yourself. How in the world did he know we're engaged?"
407
