Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/391

THE PRINCE She let him have it all. "One of the carriages, about which I spoke, will already have come back for us. If your superstitions are on our side," she smiled, "so my arrangements are, and I'll back my support against yours."

"Then you had thought," he wondered, "about Gloucester?"

She hesitated—but it was only her way. "I thought you would think. We have, thank goodness, these harmonies. They're food for superstition if you like. It's beautiful," she went on, "that it should be Gloucester; 'Glo'ster Glo'ster,' as you say, making it sound like an old song. However, I'm sure 'Glo'ster Glo'ster' will be charming," she still added; "we shall be able easily to lunch there, and, with our luggage and our servants off our hands, we shall have at least three or four hours. We can wire," she wound up, "from there."

Ever so quietly she had brought it, as she had thought it, all out, and it had to be as covertly that he let his appreciation expand. "Then Lady Castledean—?"

"Doesn't dream of our staying."

He took it, but thinking yet. "Then what does she dream—?"

"Of Mr. Blint, poor dear; of Mr. Blint only." Her smile for him—for the Prince himself—was free. "Have I positively to tell you that she doesn't want us? She only wanted us for the others—to show she wasn't left alone with him. Now that that's done and that they've all gone she of course knows for herself—!" 361