The idea was bright, yet the girl but beautifully stared. "Kate's own sentiment? Oh, she didn't speak of that. I don't think," she added as if she had been unconsciously giving a wrong impression, "I don't think Mrs. Condrip imagines she's in love."
It made Mrs. Stringham stare in turn. "Then what's her fear?"
"Well, only the fact of Mr. Densher's possibly himself keeping it up—the fear of some final result from that.
"Oh," said Susie, intellectually a little disconcerted—"she looks far ahead!"
At this, however, Milly threw off another of her sudden vague "sports." "No—it's only we who do."
"Well, don't let us be more interested for them than they are for themselves!"
"Certainly not"—the girl promptly assented. A certain interest nevertheless remained; she appeared to wish to be clear. "It wasn't of anything on Kate's own part she spoke."
"You mean she thinks her sister does not care for him?"
It was still as if, for an instant, Milly had to be sure of what she meant; but there it presently was. "If she did care Mrs. Condrip would have told me."
What Susan Shepherd seemed hereupon for a little to wonder was why then they had been talking so. "But did you ask her?"