Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/208

THE GOLDEN BOWL worry the more. Whether, that is, you'd go so far with her in your notion of having to be kind."

He gave at this the quickest shake to his foot. "How far would she go in her notion of it?"

"Well," his daughter returned, "you know how far, in a general way, Charlotte Stant goes."

"Charlotte? Is she coming?"

"She writes me, practically, that she'd like to if we're so good as to ask her."

Mr. Verver continued to gaze, but rather as if waiting for more. Then as everything appeared to have come his expression had a drop. If this was all it was simple. "Then why in the world not?"

Maggie's face lighted anew, but it was now another light. "It isn't a want of tact?"

"To ask her?"

"To propose it to you."

"That I should ask her?"

He put the question as an effect of his remnant of vagueness, but this had also its own effect. Maggie wondered an instant; after which, as with a flush of recognition, she took it up. "It would be too beautiful if you would!"

This, clearly, had not been her first idea—the chance of his words had prompted it. "Do you mean write to her myself?"

"Yes—it would be kind. It would be quite beautiful of you. That is of course," said Maggie, "if you sincerely can."

He appeared to wonder an instant why he sincerely shouldn't, and indeed, for that matter, where the question of sincerity came in. This virtue between 178