Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/403

THE PRINCE "Oh in the air—!" the Colonel dryly breathed.

"Well, what's in the air always "has"—hasn't it?—to come down to the earth. And Maggie," Mrs. Assingham continued, "is a very curious little person. Since I was 'in,' this afternoon, for seeing more than I had ever done—well, I felt that too, for some reason, as I hadn't yet felt it."

"For 'some' reason? For what reason?" And then as his wife at first said nothing: "Did she give any sign? Was she in any way different?"

"She's always so different from any one else in the world that it's hard to say when she's different from herself. But she has made me," said Fanny after an instant, "think of her differently. She drove me home."

"Home here?"

"First to Portland Place—on her leaving her father: since she does once in a while leave him. That was to keep me with her a little longer. But she kept the carriage and, after tea there, came with me herself back here. This was also for the same purpose. Then she went home, though I had brought her a message from the Prince that arranged their movements otherwise. He and Charlotte must have arrived—if they have arrived—expecting to drive together to Eaton Square and keep Maggie on to dinner there. She has everything there, you know—she has clothes."

The Colonel didn't in fact know, but he gave it his apprehension. "Oh you mean a change?"

"Twenty changes if you like—all sorts of things. She dresses really, Maggie does, as much for her father—and she always did—as for her husband 373