id; it
being a relation in which Kate could but mutely listen. She couldn't
indeed too often say to herself that if that was what marriage did to
you----! It may easily be guessed, therefore, that the ironic light of
such reserves fell straight across the field of Marian's warning. "I
don't quite see," she answered, "where, in particular, it strikes you
that my danger lies. I'm not conscious, I assure you, of the least
'disposition' to throw myself anywhere. I feel as if, for the present,
I have been quite sufficiently thrown."

"You don't feel"--Marian brought it all out--"as if you would like to
marry Merton Densher?"

Kate took a moment to meet this inquiry. "Is it your idea that if I
should feel so I would be bound to give you notice, so that you might
step in and head me off? Is that your idea?" the girl asked. Then, as
her sister also had a pause, "I don't know what makes you talk of Mr.
Densher," she observed.

"I talk of him just because you don't. That you never do, in spite of
what I know--that's what makes me think of him. Or rather perhaps it's
what makes me think of _you._ If you don't know by this time what I
hope for you, what I dream of--my attachment being what it is--it's no
use my attempting to tell you." But Marian had in fact warmed to her
work, and Kate was sure she had discussed Mr. Densher with the Miss
Condrips. "If I name that person I suppose it's because I'm so afraid
of him. If you want really to know, he fills me with terror. If you
want really to know, in fact, I dislike him as much as I dread him."

"And yet don't think it dangerous to abuse him to me?"

"Yes," Mrs. Condrip confessed, "I do think it dangerous; but how can I
speak of him otherwise? I dare say, I admit, that I shouldn't speak of
him at all. Only I do want you for once, as I said just now, to know."

"To know what, my dear?"

"That I should regard it," Marian promptly returned, "as far and away
the worst thing that has happened to us yet."

"Do you mean because he hasn't money?"

"Yes, for one thing. And because I don't believe in him."

Kate was civil, but perfunctory. "What do you mean by not believing in
him?"

"Well, being sure he'll never get it. And you _must_ have it. You
_shall_ have it."

"To give it to you?"

Marian met her with a readiness that was practically pert. "To _have_
it, first. Not, at any rate, to go on not having it. Then we should
see."

"We should indeed!" said Kate Croy. It was ta