Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/255

THE PRINCE "I was to be with you," said Charlotte, "for her security."

"Well," Adam Verver rang out, "this is her security. You've only, if you can't see it, to ask her."

"'Ask' her?"—the girl echoed it in wonder.

"Certainly—in so many words. Telling her you don't believe me."

Still she debated. "Do you mean write it to her?"

"Quite so. Immediately. To-morrow."

"Oh I don't think I can write it," said Charlotte Stant. "When I write to her"—and she looked amused for so different a shade—"it's about the Principino's appetite and Dr. Brady's visits."

"Very good then—put it to her face to face. We'll go straight to Paris to meet them."

Charlotte, at this, rose with a movement that was like a small cry; but her unspoken sense lost itself while she stood with her eyes on him—he keeping his seat as for the help it gave him, a little, to make his appeal go up. Presently, however, a new sense had come to her, and she covered him kindly with the expression of it. "I do think, you know, you must rather 'like' me."

"Thank you," said Adam Verver. "You will put it to her yourself then?"

She had another hesitation. "We go over you say to meet them?"

"As soon as we can get back to Fawns. And wait there for them, if necessary, till they come."

"Wait—a—at Fawns?"

"Wait in Paris. That will be charming in itself." 225