"And good to himself—he thought that would come. He had been unable to swallow," Mrs. Stringham pursued, "what had happened on his other visit. He had been then too sharply humiliated."
"Oh I saw that."
"Yes, and he also saw you. He saw you received, as it were, while he was turned away."
"Perfectly," Densher said—"I've filled it out. And also that he has known meanwhile for what I was then received. For a stay of all these weeks. He had had it to think of."
"Precisely—it was more than he could bear. But he has it," said Mrs. Stringham, "to think of still."
"Only, after all," asked Densher, who himself somehow, at this point, was having more to think of even than he had yet had—"only, after all, how has he happened to know? That is, to know enough."
"What do you call enough?" Mrs. Stringham enquired.
"He can only have acted—it would have been his sole safety—from full knowledge."
He had gone on without heeding her question; but, face to face as they were, something had none the less passed between them. It was this that, after an instant, made her again interrogative. "What do you mean by full knowledge?"
Densher met it indirectly. "Where has he been since October?"