"Then, my dear child, what in the world is the matter?"

"I wanted to see if they WOULD. And they've had to," Maggie added. "It was the only thing."

Her friend appeared to wonder. "From the moment you and your father backed out?"

"Oh, I don't mean go for those people; I mean go for us. For father and me," Maggie went on. "Because now they know."

"They 'know'?" f.a.n.n.y a.s.singham quavered.

"That I've been for some time past taking more notice. Notice of the queer things in our life."

Maggie saw her companion for an instant on the point of asking her what these queer things might be; but Mrs. a.s.singham had the next minute brushed by that ambiguous opening and taken, as she evidently felt, a better one. "And is it for that you did it? I mean gave up the visit."

"It's for that I did it. To leave them to themselves--as they less and less want, or at any rate less and less venture to appear to want, to be left. As they had for so long arranged things," the Princess went on, "you see they sometimes have to be." And then, as if baffled by the lucidity of this, Mrs. a.s.singham for a little said nothing: "Now do you think I'm modest?"

With time, however; f.a.n.n.y could brilliantly think anything that would serve. "I think you're wrong. That, my dear, is my answer to your question. It demands a.s.suredly the straightest I can make. I see no 'awfulness'--I suspect none. I'm deeply distressed," she added, "that you should do anything else." It drew again from Maggie a long look.

"You've never even imagined anything?"

"Ah, G.o.d forbid!--for it's exactly as a woman of imagination that I speak. There's no moment of my life at which I'm not imagining something; and it's thanks to that, darling," Mrs. a.s.singham pursued, "that I figure the sincerity with which your husband, whom you see as viciously occupied with your stepmother, is interested, is tenderly interested, in his admirable, adorable wife." She paused a minute as to give her friend the full benefit of this--as to Maggie's measure of which, however, no sign came; and then, poor woman, haplessly, she crowned her effort.--"He wouldn't hurt a hair of your head."

It had produced in Maggie, at once, and apparently in the intended form of a smile, the most extraordinary expression. "Ah, there it is!"

But her guest had already gone on. "And I'm absolutely certain that Charlotte wouldn't either."

It kept the Princess, with her strange grimace, standing there.

"No--Charlotte wouldn't either. That's how they've had again to go off together. They've been afraid not to--lest it should disturb me, aggravate me, somehow work upon me. As I insisted that they must, that we couldn't all fail--though father and Charlotte hadn't really accepted; as I did this they had to yield to the fear that their showing as afraid to move together would count for them as the greater danger: which would be the danger, you see, of my feeling myself wronged. Their least danger, they know, is in going on with all the things that I've seemed to accept and that I've given no indication, at any moment, of not accepting. Everything that has come up for them has come up, in an extraordinary manner, without my having by a sound or a sign given myself away--so that it's all as wonderful as you may conceive. They move at any rate among the dangers I speak of--between that of their doing too much and that of their not having any longer the confidence, or the nerve, or whatever you may call it, to do enough." Her tone, by this time, might have shown a strangeness to match her smile; which was still more marked as she wound up. "And that's how I make them do what I like!"

It had an effect on Mrs. a.s.singham, who rose with the deliberation that, from point to point, marked the widening of her grasp. "My dear child, you're amazing."

"Amazing--?"

"You're terrible."

Maggie thoughtfully shook her head. "No; I'm not terrible, and you don't think me so. I do strike you as surprising, no doubt--but surprisingly mild. Because--don't you see?--I AM mild. I can bear anything."

"Oh, 'bear'!" Mrs. a.s.singham fluted.

"For love," said the Princess.

f.a.n.n.y hesitated. "Of your father?"

"For love," Maggie repeated.

It kept her friend watching. "Of your husband?"

"For love," Maggie said again.

It was, for the moment, as if the distinctness of this might have determined in her companion a choice between two or three highly different alternatives. Mrs. a.s.singham's rejoinder, at all events--however much or however little it was a choice--was presently a triumph. "Speaking with this love of your own then, have you undertaken to convey to me that you believe your husband and your father's wife to be in act and in fact lovers of each other?" And then as the Princess didn't at first answer: "Do you call such an allegation as that 'mild'?"

"Oh, I'm not pretending to be mild to you. But I've told you, and moreover you must have seen for yourself, how much so I've been to them."

Mrs. a.s.singham, more brightly again, bridled. "Is that what you call it when you make them, for terror as you say, do as you like?"

"Ah, there wouldn't be any terror for them if they had nothing to hide."

Mrs. a.s.singham faced her--quite steady now. "Are you really conscious, love, of what you're saying?"

"I'm saying that I'm bewildered and tormented, and that I've no one but you to speak to. I've thought, I've in fact been sure, that you've seen for yourself how much this is the case. It's why I've believed you would meet me half way."

"Half way to what? To denouncing," f.a.n.n.y asked, "two persons, friends of years, whom I've always immensely admired and liked, and against whom I haven't the shadow of a charge to make?"

Maggie looked at her with wide eyes. "I had much rather you should denounce me than denounce them. Denounce me, denounce me," she said, "if you can see your way." It was exactly what she appeared to have argued out with herself. "If, conscientiously, you can denounce me; if, conscientiously, you can revile me; if, conscientiously, you can put me in my place for a low-minded little pig--!"

"Well?" said Mrs. a.s.singham, consideringly, as she paused for emphasis.

"I think I shall be saved."

Her friend took it, for a minute, however, by carrying thoughtful eyes, eyes verily portentous, over her head. "You say you've no one to speak to, and you make a point of your having so disguised your feelings--not having, as you call it, given yourself away. Have you then never seen it not only as your right, but as your bounden duty, worked up to such a pitch, to speak to your husband?"

"I've spoken to him," said Maggie.

Mrs. a.s.singham stared. "Ah, then it isn't true that you've made no sign."

Maggie had a silence. "I've made no trouble. I've made no scene. I've taken no stand. I've neither reproached nor accused him. You'll say there's a way in all that of being nasty enough."

"Oh!" dropped from f.a.n.n.y as if she couldn't help it.

"But I don't think--strangely enough--that he regards me as nasty.

I think that at bottom--for that IS," said the Princess, "the strangeness--he's sorry for me. Yes, I think that, deep within, he pities me."

Her companion wondered. "For the state you've let yourself get into?"

"For not being happy when I've so much to make me so."

"You've everything," said Mrs. a.s.singham with alacrity. Yet she remained for an instant embarra.s.sed as to a further advance. "I don't understand, however, how, if you've done nothing--"

An impatience from Maggie had checked her. "I've not done absolutely 'nothing.'"

"But what then--?"

"Well," she went on after a minute, "he knows what I've done."

It produced on Mrs. a.s.singham's part, her whole tone and manner exquisitely aiding, a hush not less prolonged, and the very duration of which inevitably gave it something of the character of an equal recognition. "And what then has HE done?"

Maggie took again a minute. "He has been splendid."

"'Splendid'? Then what more do you want?"