Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/432

THE GOLDEN BOWL "Never with my present eyes. For nothing like such a test—that of this length of the others' absence together—has hitherto occurred."

"Possibly! But if she and Mr. Verver insisted upon it—?"

"Why is it such a test? Because it has become one without their intending it. It has spoiled, so to speak, on their hands."

"It has soured, eh?" the Colonel said.

"The word's horrible—say rather it has 'changed.' Perhaps," Fanny went on, "she did wish to see how much she can bear. In that case she has seen. Only it was she alone who—about the visit—insisted. Her father insists on nothing. And she watches him do it."

Her husband looked impressed. "Watches him?"

"For the first faint sign. I mean of his noticing. It doesn't, as I tell you, come. But she's there for it—to see. And I felt," she continued, "how she's there; I caught her, as it were, in the fact. She couldn't keep it from me—though she left her post on purpose: came home with me to throw dust in my eyes. I took it all—her dust; but it was what showed me." With which supreme lucidity she reached the door of her room. "Luckily it showed me also how she has succeeded. Nothing—from him—has come."

"You're so awfully sure?"

"Sure. Nothing will. Good-night," she said. "She'll die first."