Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/71

THE PRINCE "Ah that's not fair!" said the Prince.

"To criticise her? Then there you are! You're answered."

"I'm answered." He took it, humorously, as his lesson—sank his previous self-consciousness, with excellent effect, in grateful docility. "I only meant that there are perhaps better things to be done with Miss Stant than to criticise her. When once you begin that, with anyone—!" He was vague and kind.

"I quite agree that it's better to keep out of it as long as one can. But when one must do it—"

"Yes?" he asked as she paused.

"Then know what you mean."

"I see. Perhaps," he smiled, "I don't know what I mean."

"Well, it's what, just now, in all ways, you particularly should know." Mrs. Assingham however made no more of this, having before anything else apparently a scruple about the tone she had just used. "I quite understand of course that, given her great friendship with Maggie, she should have wanted to be present. She has acted impulsively—but she has acted generously."

"She has acted beautifully," said the Prince.

"I say 'generously' because I mean she hasn't in any way counted the cost. She 'll have it to count in a manner now," his hostess continued. "But that doesn't matter."

He could see how little. "You'll look after her."

"I'll look after her."

"So it's all right."

"It's all right," said Mrs. Assingham. 41