Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/190

THE GOLDEN BOWL almost equally had others on their mind? They each knew that both were full of the superstition of not "hurting," but might precisely have been asking themselves, asking in fact each other, at this moment, whether that was to be after all the last word of their conscientious development. Certain it was at all events that in addition to the Assinghams and the Lutches and Mrs. Rance the attendance at tea just in the right place on the west terrace might perfectly comprise the four or five persons—among them the very pretty, the typically Irish Miss Maddock, vaunted announced and now brought—from the couple of other houses near enough, one of these the minor residence of their proprietor, established thriftily, while he hired out his ancestral home, within sight and sense of his profit. It wasn't less certain either that for once in a way the group in question must all take the case as they found it. Fanny Assingham, at any time, for that matter, might perfectly be trusted to see Mr. Verver and his daughter, to see their reputation for a decent friendliness, through any momentary danger; might be trusted even to carry off their absence for Amerigo, for Amerigo's possible funny Italian anxiety; Amerigo always being, as the Princess was well aware, conveniently amenable to his friend's explanations, beguilements, reassurances, and perhaps in fact rather more than less dependent on them as his new life—since that was his own name for it—opened out. It was no secret to Maggie—it was indeed positively a public joke for her—that she couldn't explain as Mrs. Assingham did, and that, the Prince liking explanations, liking them almost 160