of my life."
That was all, for the moment, but it was enough, and it was almost as
quiet as if it were nothing. They were in the open air, in an alley of
the Gardens; the great space, which seemed to arch just then higher and
spread wider for them, threw them back into deep concentration. They
moved by a common instinct to a spot, within sight, that struck them as
fairly sequestered, and there, before their time together was spent,
they had extorted from concentration every advance it could make them.
They had exchanged vows and tokens, sealed their rich compact,
solemnized, so far as breathed words and murmured sounds and lighted
eyes and clasped hands could do it, their agreement to belong only, and
to belong tremendously, to each other. They were to leave the place
accordingly an affianced couple; but before they left it other things
still had passed. Densher had declared his horror of bringing to a
premature end her happy relation with her aunt; and they had worked
round together to a high level of wisdom and patience. Kate's free
profession was that she wished not to deprive _him_ of Mrs. Lowder's
countenance, which, in the long run, she was convinced he would
continue to enjoy; and as, by a blessed turn, Aunt Maud had demanded of
him no promise that would tie his hands, they should be able to
cultivate their destiny in their own way and yet remain loyal. One
difficulty alone stood out, which Densher named.

"Of course it will never do--we must remember that--from the moment you
allow her to found hopes of you for any one else in particular. So long
as her view is content to remain as general as at present appears, I
don't see that we deceive her. At a given moment, you see, she must be
undeceived: the only thing therefore is to be ready for the moment and
to face it. Only, after all, in that case," the young man observed,
"one doesn't quite make out what we shall have got from her."

"What she'll have got from _us?"_ Kate inquired with a smile. "What
she'll have got from us," the girl went on, "is her own affair--it's
for _her_ to measure. I asked her for nothing," she added; "I never put
myself upon her. She must take her risks, and she surely understands
them. What we shall have got from her is what we've already spoken of,"
Kate further explained; "it's that we shall have gained time. And so,
for that matter, will she."

Densher gazed a little at all this clearness; his gaze was not at the
present hour into