Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/138

THE GOLDEN BOWL two hours and evidently had found nothing. It forced from Charlotte a rueful admission.

"It ought, really, if it should be a thing of this sort, to take its little value from having belonged to one's self."

"Ecco!" said the Prince—just triumphantly enough. "There you are."

Behind the dealer were sundry small cupboards in the wall. Two or three of these Charlotte had seen him open, so that her eyes found themselves resting on those he hadn't visited. But she granted the whole mistake. "There's nothing here she could wear."

It was only after a moment that her companion rejoined: "Is there anything—do you think—that you could?"

It made her just start. She didn't at all events look at the objects; she but looked for an instant very directly at him. "No."

"Ah!" the Prince quietly exclaimed.

"Would it be," Charlotte asked, "your idea to offer me something?"

"Well, why not—as a small ricordo?"

"But a ricordo of what?"

"Why of 'this'—as you yourself say. Of this little hunt."

"Oh I say it—but hasn't my whole point been that I don't ask you to. Therefore," she demanded—but smiling at him now—"where's the logic?"

"Oh the logic—!" he laughed.

"But logic's everything. That at least is how I feel it. A ricordo from you—from you to me—is a ricordo of nothing. It has no reference." 108