She settled it, she thought, well enough this morning by quite readopting her plan in respect to Sir Luke Strett.
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She should have to be clear as to how a dove *would* act.
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That, with the new day, was once more her law—though she saw before her, of course, as something of a complication, her need, each time, to decide.
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But left alone with Mrs. Stringham Milly continued to breathe it: she studied again the dovelike and so set her companion to mere rich reporting that she averted all inquiry into her own case.
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The luscious innuendo of it, almost startling, lingered in the room, after the visitors had gone, like an oversweet fragrance.
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"Oh, you exquisite thing!"
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And the word, presently, bettered it still.
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It gave her straightway the measure of the success she could have as a dove: that was recorded in the long look of deep criticism, a look without a word, that Mrs. Lowder poured forth.
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"I don't *think*, dear lady, he's here."
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But Milly's answer had prepared itself while Aunt Maud was on the stair; she had felt in a rush all the reasons that would make it the most dovelike; and she gave it, while she was about it, as earnest, as candid.
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Her "all" had an ample benevolence; it soothed and simplified; she spoke as if it were the two young women, not she and her comrade, who had been facing the town together.
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It was in the tone of the fondest indulgence—almost, really, that of dove cooing to dove—that Mrs. Lowder expressed to Milly the hope that it had all gone beautifully.
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Kate was in other words, as Aunt Maud engaged her friend, listening with the handsomest response to Mrs. Stringham's impression of the scene they had just quitted.
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She had mounted the stairs for this, and she had her moment again with her younger hostess while Kate, on the spot, as the latter at the time noted, gave Susan Shepherd unwonted opportunities.
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Well, the way she did catch was simply to make the point that it didn't now in the least matter.
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She had come up, Mrs. Lowder, with Susan—which she needn't have done, at that hour, instead of letting Kate come down to her; so that Milly could be quite sure it was to catch hold, in some way, of the loose end they had left.
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There was, the next thing, little enough doubt about it after Aunt Maud had been two minutes in the room.
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Oh, *wasn't* she?—it echoed within her as she became aware of the sound, outside, of the return of their friends.
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She was a dove.
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*That* was what was the matter with her.
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She met it on the instant as she would have met the revealed truth; it lighted up the strange dusk in which she lately had walked.
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It was moreover, for the girl, like an inspiration: she found herself accepting as the right one, while she caught her breath with relief, the name so given her.
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It even came to her, through the touch of her companion's lips, that this form, this cool pressure, fairly sealed the sense of what Kate had just said.
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partly as if, though a dove who could perch on a finger, one were also a princess with whom forms were to be observed.
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With which she felt herself ever so delicately, so considerately, embraced; not with familiarity or as a liberty taken, but almost ceremonially and in the manner of an accolade;
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"Because you're a dove."
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Poor Milly hereby enjoyed one of her views of how people, wincing oddly, were often touched by her.
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She had risen as she spoke, and Kate had stopped before her, shining at her instantly with a softer brightness.
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This unexpectedly had acted, by a sudden turn of Kate's attitude, as a happy speech.
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"Why do you say such things to me?"
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