Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/116

THE GOLDEN BOWL "Why if I did do either of them by any chance a wrong. If I made a mistake."

"You'll make up for it by making another?" And then as she again took her time: "I thought your whole point is just that you're sure."

"One can never be ideally sure of anything. There are always possibilities."

"Then if we can but strike so wild why keep meddling?"

It made her again look at him. "Where would you have been, my dear, if I hadn't meddled with you?"

"Ah that wasn't meddling—I was your own. I was your own," said the Colonel, "from the moment I didn't object."

"Well, these people won't object. They are my own too—in the sense that I'm awfully fond of them. Also in the sense," she continued, "that I think they're not so very much less fond of me. Our relation, all round, exists—it's a reality, and a very good one; we're mixed up, so to speak, and it's too late to change it. We must live in it and with it. Therefore to see that Charlotte gets a good husband as soon as possible—that, as I say, will be one of my ways of living. It will cover," she said with conviction, "all the ground." And then as his own conviction appeared to continue as little to match: "The ground, I mean, of any nervousness I may ever feel. It will be in fact my duty—and I shan't rest till my duty's performed." She had arrived by this time at something like exaltation. "I shall give, for the next year or two if necessary, my life to it. I shall have done in that case what I can." 86