The Wings of the Dove Henry James (android based ebook reader TXT) đ
- Author: Henry James
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âYou positively decline?â
âPositively. Never.â To which she added oddly: âI know without.â
He had another pause. âAnd what is it you know?â
âThat she announces to you she has made you rich.â
His pause this time was longer. âLeft me her fortune?â
âNot all of it, no doubt, for itâs immense. But money to a large amount. I donât care,â Kate went on, âto know how much.â And her strange smile recurred. âI trust her.â
âDid she tell you?â Densher asked.
âNever!â Kate visibly flushed at the thought. âThat wouldnât, on my part, have been playing fair with her. And I did,â she added, âplay fair.â
Densher, who had believed herâ âhe couldnât help itâ âcontinued, holding his letter, to face her. He was much quieter now, as if his torment had somehow passed. âYou played fair with me, Kate; and thatâs whyâ âsince we talk of proofsâ âI want to give you one. Iâve wanted to let you seeâ âand in preference even to myselfâ âsomething I feel as sacred.â
She frowned a little. âI donât understand.â
âIâve asked myself for a tribute, for a sacrifice by which I can peculiarly recogniseâ ââ
âPeculiarly recognise what?â she demanded as he dropped.
âThe admirable nature of your own sacrifice. You were capable in Venice of an act of splendid generosity.â
âAnd the privilege you offer me with that document is my reward?â
He made a movement. âItâs all I can do as a symbol of my attitude.â
She looked at him long. âYour attitude, my dear, is that youâre afraid of yourself. Youâve had to take yourself in hand. Youâve had to do yourself violence.â
âSo it is then you meet me?â
She bent her eyes hard a moment to the letter, from which her hand still stayed itself. âYou absolutely desire me to take it?â
âI absolutely desire you to take it.â
âTo do what I like with it?â
âShort of course of making known its terms. It must remainâ âpardon my making the pointâ âbetween you and me.â
She had a last hesitation, but she presently broke it. âTrust me.â Taking from him the sacred script she held it a little while her eyes again rested on those fine characters of Millyâs that they had shortly before discussed. âTo hold it,â she brought out, âis to know.â
âOh I know!â said Merton Densher.
âWell then if we both doâ â!â She had already turned to the fire, nearer to which she had moved, and with a quick gesture had jerked the thing into the flame. He startedâ âbut only halfâ âas to undo her action: his arrest was as prompt as the latter had been decisive. He only watched, with her, the paper burn; after which their eyes again met. âYouâll have it all,â Kate said, âfrom New York.â
It was after he had in fact, two months later, heard from New York that she paid him a visit one morning at his own quartersâ âcoming not as she had come in Venice, under his extreme solicitation, but as a need recognised in the first instance by herself, even though also as the prompt result of a missive delivered to her. This had consisted of a note from Densher accompanying a letter, âjust to hand,â addressed him by an eminent American legal firm, a firm of whose high character he had become conscious while in New York as of a thing in the air itself, and whose head and front, the principal executor of Milly Thealeâs copious will, had been duly identified at Lancaster Gate as the gentleman hurrying out, by the straight southern course, before the girlâs death, to the support of Mrs. Stringham. Densherâs act on receipt of the document in questionâ âan act as to which and to the bearings of which his resolve had had time to matureâ âconstituted in strictness, singularly enough, the first reference to Milly, or to what Milly might or might not have done, that had passed between our pair since they had stood together watching the destruction, in the little vulgar grate at Chelsea, of the undisclosed work of her hand. They had at the time, and in due deference now, on his part, to Kateâs mention of her responsibility for his call, immediately separated, and when they met again the subject was made present to themâ âat all events till some flare of new lightâ âonly by the intensity with which it mutely expressed its absence. They were not moreover in these weeks to meet often, in spite of the fact that this had, during January and a part of February, actually become for them a comparatively easy matter. Kateâs stay at Mrs. Condripâs prolonged itself under allowances from her aunt which would have been a mystery to Densher had he not been admitted, at Lancaster Gate, really in spite of himself, to the esoteric view of them. âItâs her idea,â Mrs. Lowder had there said to him as if she really despised ideasâ âwhich she didnât; âand Iâve taken up with my own, which is to give her her head till she has had enough of it. She has had enough of it, she had that soon enough; but as sheâs as proud as the deuce sheâll come back when she has found some reasonâ âhaving nothing in common with her disgustâ âof which she can make a show. She calls it her holiday, which sheâs spending in her own wayâ âthe holiday to which, once a year or so, as she says, the very maids in the scullery have a right. So weâre taking it on that basis. But we shall not soon, I think, take another of the same sort. Besides, sheâs quite decent; she comes oftenâ âwhenever I make her a sign; and she has been good, on the whole, this year or two, so that, to be decent myself, I donât complain. She has really been, poor dear, very much what one hoped; though I neednât, you know,â Aunt Maud wound up, âtell you, after all, you clever creature, what that was.â
It had been partly in truth to keep down the opportunity for this that Densherâs appearances under the good ladyâs roof markedly, after
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