Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/415

THE PRINCE the peace with a baby or a lunatic. "To the very, very wrong."

But his wife's spirit, after its effort of wing, was able to remain higher. "To what's called Evil—with a very big E: for the first time in her life. To the discovery of it, to the knowledge of it, to the crude experience of it." And she gave, for the possibility, the largest measure. "To the harsh bewildering brush, the daily chilling breath of it. Unless indeed"—and here Mrs. Assingham noted a limit—"unless indeed, as yet (so far as she has come, and if she comes no further), simply to the suspicion and the dread. What we shall see is whether that mere dose of alarm will prove enough."

He considered. "But enough for what then, dear—if not enough to break her heart?"

"Enough to give her a shaking!" Mrs. Assingham rather oddly replied. "To give her, I mean, the right one. The right one won't break her heart. It will make her," she explained—"well, it will make her, by way of a change, understand one or two things in the world."

"But isn't it a pity," the Colonel asked, "that they should happen to be the one or two that will be the most disagreeable to her?"

"Oh 'disagreeable'—? They'll have had to be disagreeable—to show her a little where she is. They'll have had to be disagreeable to make her sit up. They'll have had to be disagreeable to make her decide to live."

Bob Assingham was now at the window, while his companion slowly revolved; he had lighted a cigarette, 385