The Wings of the Dove Henry James (android based ebook reader TXT) đ
- Author: Henry James
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âBy her request?â
âAbsolutely. I donât do what she doesnât wish. We talk of the price of provisions.â
âBy her request too?â
âAbsolutely. She named it to me as a subject when she said, the first time, that if it would be any comfort to me he might stay as much as we liked.â
Densher took it all in. âBut he isnât any comfort to you!â
âNone whatever. That, however,â she added, âisnât his fault. Nothingâs any comfort.â
âCertainly,â Densher observed, âas I but too horribly feel, Iâm not.â
âNo. But I didnât come for that.â
âYou came for me.â
âWell then call it that.â But she looked at him a moment with eyes filled full, and something came up in her the next instant from deeper still. âI came at bottom of courseâ ââ
âYou came at bottom of course for our friend herself. But if itâs, as you say, too late for me to do anything?â
She continued to look at him, and with an irritation, which he saw grow in her, from the truth itself. âSo I did say. But, with you hereââ âand she turned her vision again strangely about herâ ââwith you here, and with everything, I feel we mustnât abandon her.â
âGod forbid we should abandon her.â
âThen you wonât?â His tone had made her flush again.
âHow do you mean I âwonât,â if she abandons me? What can I do if she wonât see me?â
âBut you said just now you wouldnât like it.â
âI said I shouldnât like it in the light of what you tell me. I shouldnât like it only to see her as you make me. I should like it if I could help her. But even then,â Densher pursued without faith, âshe would have to want it first herself. And there,â he continued to make out, âis the devil of it. She wonât want it herself. She canât!â
He had got up in his impatience of it, and she watched him while he helplessly moved. âThereâs one thing you can do. Thereâs only that, and even for that there are difficulties. But there is that.â He stood before her with his hands in his pockets, and he had soon enough, from her eyes, seen what was coming. She paused as if waiting for his leave to utter it, and as he only let her wait they heard in the silence, on the Canal, the renewed downpour of rain. She had at last to speak, but, as if still with her fear, she only half-spoke. âI think you really know yourself what it is.â
He did know what it was, and with it even, as she saidâ ârather!â âthere were difficulties. He turned away on them, on everything, for a moment; he moved to the other window and looked at the sheeted channel, wider, like a river, where the houses opposite, blurred and belittled, stood at twice their distance. Mrs. Stringham said nothing, was as mute in fact, for the minute, as if she had âhadâ him, and he was the first again to speak. When he did so, however, it was not in straight answer to her last remarkâ âhe only started from that. He said, as he came back to her, âLet me, you know, seeâ âone must understand,â almost as if he had for the time accepted it. And what he wished to understand was where, on the essence of the question, was the voice of Sir Luke Strett. If they talked of not giving her up shouldnât he be the one least of all to do it? âArenât we, at the worst, in the dark without him?â
âOh,â said Mrs. Stringham, âitâs he who has kept me going. I wired the first night, and he answered like an angel. Heâll come like one. Only he canât arrive, at the nearest, till Thursday afternoon.â
âWell then thatâs something.â
She considered. âSomethingâ âyes. She likes him.â
âRather! I can see it still, the face with which, when he was here in Octoberâ âthat night when she was in white, when she had people there and those musiciansâ âshe committed him to my care. It was beautiful for both of usâ âshe put us in relation. She asked me, for the time, to take him about; I did so, and we quite hit it off. That proved,â Densher said with a quick sad smile, âthat she liked him.â
âHe liked you,â Susan Shepherd presently risked.
âAh I know nothing about that.â
âYou ought to then. He went with you to galleries and churches; you saved his time for him, showed him the choicest things, and you perhaps will remember telling me myself that if he hadnât been a great surgeon he might really have been a great judge. I mean of the beautiful.â
âWell,â the young man admitted, âthatâs what he isâ âin having judged her. He hasnât,â he went on, âjudged her for nothing. His interest in herâ âwhich we must make the most ofâ âcan only be supremely beneficent.â
He still roamed, while he spoke, with his hands in his pockets, and she saw him, on this, as her eyes sufficiently betrayed, trying to keep his distance from the recognition he had a few moments before partly confessed to. âIâm glad,â she dropped, âyou like him!â
There was something for him in the sound of it. âWell, I do no more, dear lady, than you do yourself. Surely you like him. Surely, when he was here, we all liked him.â
âYes, but I seem to feel I know what he thinks. And I should think, with all the time you spent with him, youâd know it,â she said, âyourself.â
Densher stopped short, though at first without a word. âWe never spoke of her. Neither of us mentioned her, even to sound her name, and nothing whatever in connection with her passed between us.â
Mrs. Stringham stared up at him, surprised at this
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