Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/296

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may be recorded none the less that the Prince was the next moment to see how little any such assumption was founded. Alone with him now Mrs. Assingham was incorruptible. "They send for Charlotte through you?"

"No, my dear; as you see, through the Ambassador."

"Ah but the Ambassador and you, for the last quarter of an hour, have been for them as one. He's your ambassador." It may indeed be further mentioned that the more Fanny looked at it the more she saw in it. "They've connected her with you—she's treated as your appendage."

"Oh my 'appendage,'" the Prince amusedly exclaimed—"cara mia, what a name! She's treated rather say as my ornament and my glory. And it's so remarkable a case for a mother-in-law that you surely can't find fault with it"

"You've ornaments enough, it seems to me—as you've certainly glories enough—without her. And she's not the least little bit," Mrs. Assingham observed, "your mother-in-law. In such a matter a shade of difference is enormous. She's no relation to you whatever, and if she's known in high quarters but as going about with you, then—then—!" She failed, however, as from positive intensity of vision.

"Then, then what?" he asked with perfect good nature. 266