Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/131

THE PRINCE on her—what he would have called another light—to her companion, who, though without giving a sign, admired, for what it was, the simplicity of her transition, a transition that took no trouble either to trace or to explain itself. She paused again an instant on the grass to make it; she stopped before him with a sudden "Anything of course, dear as she is, will do for her. I mean if I were to give her a pin-cushion from the Baker-Street Bazaar."

"That's exactly what I mean" the Prince laughed out this allusion to their snatch of talk in Portland Place. "It's just what I suggested."

She took, however, no notice of the reminder; she went on in her own way. "But it isn't a reason. In that case one would never do anything for her. I mean," Charlotte explained, "if one took advantage of her character."

"Of her character?"

"We mustn't take advantage of her character," the girl, again unheeding, pursued. "One mustn't, if not for her, at least for one's self. She saves one such trouble."

She had spoken thoughtfully, her eyes on her friend's; she might have been talking, preoccupied and practical, of some one with whom he was comparatively unconnected. "She certainly gives one no trouble," said the Prince. And then as if this were perhaps ambiguous or inadequate: "She's not selfish—God forgive her!—enough."

"That's what I mean," Charlotte instantly said. "She's not selfish enough. There's nothing, absolutely, that one need do for her. She's so modest," she 101