Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/146

THE GOLDEN BOWL "Well, whoever it might be. He might know—and he might try. But he wouldn't find."

She kept her eyes on him as if, though unsatisfied, mystified, she yet had a fancy for the bowl. "Not even if the thing should come to pieces?" And then as he was silent: "Not even if he should have to say to me 'The Golden Bowl is broken'?"

He was still silent; after which he had his strangest smile. "Ah if any one should want to smash it—!"

She laughed; she almost admired the little man's expression. "You mean one could smash it with a hammer?"

"Yes, if nothing else would do. Or perhaps even by dashing it with violence—say upon a marble floor."

"Oh marble floors—!" But she might have been thinking—for they were a connexion, marble floors; a connexion with many things: with her old Rome, and with his; with the palaces of his past and, a little, of hers; with the possibilities of his future, with the sumptuosities of his marriage, with the wealth of the Ververs. All the same, however, there were other things; and they all together held for a moment her fancy. "Does crystal then break—when it is crystal? I thought its beauty was its hardness."

Her friend, in his way, discriminated. "Its beauty is its being crystal. But its hardness is certainly its safety. It doesn't break," he went on, "like vile glass. It splits—if there is a split."

"Ah!"—Charlotte breathed with interest. "If 116