"Yes—Milly either. But I mean Aunt Maud. Not really."
Densher gave it his wonder. "Takes him to her heart and yet thinks he cheats?"
"Yes," said Kate—"that's the way people are. What they think of their enemies, goodness knows, is bad enough; but I'm still more struck with what they think of their friends. Milly's own state of mind, however," she went on, "is lucky. That's Aunt Maud's security, though she doesn't yet fully recognise it—besides being Milly's own."
"You conceive it a real escape then not to care for him?"
She shook her head in beautiful grave deprecation. "You oughtn't to make me say too much. But I'm glad I don't."
"Don't say too much?"
"Don't care for Lord Mark."
"Oh!" Densher answered with a sound like his lordship's own. To which he added: "You absolutely hold that that poor girl doesn't?"
"Ah you know what I hold about that poor girl!" It had made her again impatient.
Yet he stuck a minute to the subject. "You scarcely call him, I suppose, one of the dukes."