The Wings of the Dove Henry James (android based ebook reader TXT) đ
- Author: Henry James
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It was under the influence of this last reflection that Densher again delayed; and it was while he delayed that something else occurred to him. It was all round, visiblyâ âgiven his own new contributionâ âa case of pressure; and in a case of pressure Kate, for quicker knowledge, might have come out with her aunt. The possibility that in this event she might be sitting in the carriageâ âthe thing most likelyâ âhad had the effect, before he could check it, of bringing him within range of the window. It wasnât there he had wished to see her; yet if she was there he couldnât pretend not to. What he had however the next moment made out was that if someone was there it wasnât Kate Croy. It was, with a sensible shock for him, the person who had last offered him a conscious face from behind the clear plate of a cafĂ© in Venice. The great glass at Florianâs was a medium less obscure, even with the window down, than the air of the London Christmas; yet at present also, none the less, between the two men, an exchange of recognitions could occur. Densher felt his own look a gaping arrestâ âwhich, he disgustedly remembered, his back as quickly turned, appeared to repeat itself as his special privilege. He mounted the steps of the house and touched the bell with a keen consciousness of being habitually looked at by Kateâs friend from positions of almost insolent vantage. He forgot for the time the moment when, in Venice, at the palace, the encouraged young man had in a manner assisted at the departure of the disconcerted, since Lord Mark was not looking disconcerted now any more than he had looked from his bench at his cafĂ©. Densher was thinking that he seemed to show as vagrant while another was ensconced. He was thinking of the other asâ âin spite of the difference of situationâ âmore ensconced than ever; he was thinking of him above all as the friend of the person with whom his recognition had, the minute previous, associated him. The man was seated in the very place in which, beside Mrs. Lowderâs, he had looked to find Kate, and that was a sufficient identity. Meanwhile at any rate the door of the house had opened and Mrs. Lowder stood before him. It was something at least that she wasnât Kate. She was herself, on the spot, in all her affluence; with presence of mind both to decide at once that Lord Mark, in the brougham, didnât matter and to prevent Sir Lukeâs butler, by a firm word thrown over her shoulder, from standing there to listen to her passage with the gentleman who had rung. âIâll tell Mr. Densher; you neednât wait!â And the passage, promptly and richly, took place on the steps.
âHe arrives, travelling straight, tomorrow early. I couldnât not come to learn.â
âNo more,â said Densher simply, âcould I. On my way,â he added, âto Lancaster Gate.â
âSweet of you.â She beamed on him dimly, and he saw her face was attuned. It made him, with what she had just before said, know all, and he took the thing in while he met the air of portentous, of almost functional, sympathy that had settled itself as her medium with him and that yet had now a fresh glow. âSo you have had your message?â
He knew so well what she meant, and so equally with it what he âhad hadâ no less than what he hadnât, that, with but the smallest hesitation, he strained the point. âYesâ âmy message.â
âOur dear dove then, as Kate calls her, has folded her wonderful wings.â
âYesâ âfolded them.â
It rather racked him, but he tried to receive it as she intended, and she evidently took his formal assent for self-control. âUnless itâs more true,â she accordingly added, âthat she has spread them the wider.â
He again but formally assented, though, strangely enough, the words fitted a figure deep in his own imagination. âRather, yesâ âspread them the wider.â
âFor a flight, I trust, to some happiness greaterâ â!â
âExactly. Greater,â
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