The Golden Bowl

t to pretend, and I can't pretend a moment longer. You may think of me what you will, but I don't care. I knew I shouldn't and I find now how little. I

she indicated were vague to him - or were, rathe

it, loved it, as if it were in fact a part of what she had come back for. So far as this was the case the impression of course could only be lost on a mere vague Italian; it was one of those for which you had to be, blessedly, an American - as indeed you had to be, blessedly, an American for all sorts of things: so long as you hadn't, blessedly or not, to remain in America. The Prince had, by half-past ten - as also by definite appointment - called in Cadogan Place for Mrs. Assingham's visitor, and then, after brief delay, the two had walked together up Sloane Street and got straight into the Park from Knightsbridge. The understanding to this end had taken its place, after a couple of days, as inevitably consequent on the appeal made by the girl during those first

sitively, all the while, he had not seen even Maggie; and if, therefore, he had not seen even Maggie, nothing was more natural than that he shouldn't have seen Charlotte. The exceptional minute, a mere snatch, at the tail of the others, on the huge Portland Place staircase had sufficiently enabled the girl to remind him - so ready she assumed him to be- of what they were to do. Time pressed if they were to do it at all. Everyone had brought gifts; his relations had brought wonders - how did they still have, where did they still find, such treasures? She only had brought nothing, and she was asha

nd for such a purpose, after

ake our hour. Enough," she had smiled, "is as good as a feast! And then," she had said, "it isn't of course a question of anything expensive, gorged with treasure as Maggie is; it isn't a question of competing or outshining. What, naturally, in the way of the priceless, hasn't she got? Mine is to be the offering of the poor - someth

IGHT, in its comparative cheapness. That's what I call funny," she had explained. "You used," she had also added, "to help me to get things cheap in Rome

I find it dull." So much as that, while they turned to go up

she had laughed. "Our amusement here is just that they

use the point permitted. "The amuseme

nly - a

hey don't c

u come to that, absolutely a pauper. I'm too poor for some things," she had said - yet, strange as she was,

challenged it.

d we oughtn't, you know," she had wou

te secrecy of their little excursion was in short of the essence; she appealed to his kindness to let her feel that he didn't betray her. There had been something, frankly, a little disconcerting in such an appeal at such an hour, on the very eve of his nuptials: it was one thing to have met the girl casually at Mrs. Assingham's and another to arrange with her thus for a morning practically as private as their old mornings in Rome and practically not less intimate. He had immediately told Maggie, the same evening, of the minutes that had passed between them in Cadogan Place - though not mentioning those of Mrs. Assingham's absence any more than he mentioned the fact of what their friend had then, with such small delay, proposed. But what had briefly checked his assent to any present, to any positive making of mystery - what had made him, while they stood at the top of the stairs, demur just long enough for her t

assented, for enlightened indulgence, to any particular turn she might wish the occasion to take, that the stamp of her preference had been well applied to it even while they were still in the Park. The application in fact presently required that they should sit down a little, really to see where they were; in obedience to which propriety they had some ten minutes, of a quality quite distinct, in a couple of penny-chairs under one of the larger trees. They had taken, for their walk, to the cropped, rain-freshened grass, after finding it already dry; and the chairs, turned away from the broad alley, the main drive and the aspect of Park Lane, looked across the wide reaches of green which seemed in a manner to refine upon their freedom. T

reasons; but it was either this or nothing. So I didn't struggle, you see, in vain. AFTER- oh, I didn't want that! I don't mean," she smiled, "that it wouldn't have been delightful to see you even then - to see you at any time; but I would never have come for it. This is different. This is what I wanted. This is what I've got. This is what I shall always have. This is what I should have missed, of course," she pursued, "if you had chosen to make me miss it. If you had thought me horrid, had refused to come, I should, naturally, have been immensely 'sold.' I had to take the risk. Well, you're all I could have hoped. That's what I was to have said. I didn't want simply to get my time with you, but I wanted you to know. I w

umbness of diversion in which he had taken refuge. He was glad when, finally - the point she had wished to make seeming established to her satisfaction - they brought to what might pass for a close the moment of his life at which he had had least to say. Movement and progress, after this, with more impersonal talk, were naturally a relief; so that he was not again, during their excursion, at a loss for the right word. The air had been, as it were, cleared; they had their errand itself to discuss, and the opportunities of London, the sense of the wonderful place, the pleasures of prowling there, the question of shops, of possibilities, of particular objects, noticed by each in previous prowls. Each professed surprise at the extent of the other's knowledge; the Prince in especial wondered at his friend's possession of her London. He had rather prized his own possession, the guidance he could really often give a cabman; it was a whim of his own, a part of his Anglomania, and congruous with that feature, which had, after all, so much more surface than depth. When his companion, with the memory of other visits and other rambles, spoke of places he hadn't s

reat people, all over Europe, sought introductions to him; high personages, incredibly high, and more of them than would ever be known, solemnly sworn as everyone was, in such cases, to discretion, high personages made up to him as the one man on the short authentic list likely to give the price. It had therefore been easy to settle, as they walked, that the tracks of the Ververs, daughter's as well as father's, were to be avoided; the importance only was that their talk about it led for a moment to the first words they had as yet exchanged on the subject of Maggie. Charlotte, still in the Park, proceeded to

hed out this allusion to their snatch of talk

"But it isn't a reason. In that case one would never do anything for her

r char

again unheeding, pursued. "One mustn't, if not for HER

ical, of someone with whom he was comparatively unconnected. "She certainly GIVES one no trouble," said the Pr

absolutely, that one NEED do for her. She's so modest," she developed -"she doesn't miss t

as a tribute, after all, to

own disposition to be kind to you. It's of herself that she asks efforts - so far as she

always with propriety, he didn

stand it. And nobody," Charlotte continued in the same manner, "is decent enough, good enough, to stand it - not without help from religion, or so

thought an instant. "Not

l the strain. We happen each, I think, t

ne's affection for her do something more for one's decency, as you call it, than her

e it must be

him. "What it comes to - one can see what you mean - is th

it comes to," sa

ingly, "should it be terrible?" H

so - the idea of ha

lso, with it, the i

f we can't

ompetently added, "if we care for them

. "It comes back then to our abs

e laughed as they went on - "all your

ent. "It's just what I mean