Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/116

THE GOLDEN BOWL from the moment she should be definitely caught in opposition there would be naturally no saying how much Charlotte's opportunities might multiply. What would become of her father, she hauntedly asked, if his wife, on the one side, should begin to press him to call his daughter to order, and the force of old habit—to put it only at that—should dispose him not less effectively to believe in this young person at any price? There she was, all round, imprisoned in the circle of the reasons it was impossible she should give—certainly give him. The house in the country was his house, and thereby was Charlotte's; it was her own and Amerigo's only so far as its proper master and mistress should profusely place it at their disposal. Maggie felt of course that she saw no limit to her father's profusion, but this couldn't be even at the best the case with Charlotte's, whom it would never be decent, when all was said, to reduce to fighting for her preferences. There were hours truly when the Princess saw herself as not unarmed for battle if battle might only take place without spectators.

This last advantage for her was however too sadly out of the question; her sole strength lay in her being able to see that if Charlotte wouldn't "want" the Assinghams it would be because that sentiment too would have motives and grounds. She had all the while command of one way of meeting any objection, any complaint, on his wife's part, reported to her by her father; it would be open to her to retort to his possible "What are your reasons, my dear?" by a lucidly-produced "What are hers, love, please?—isn't that what we had better know? Mayn't her reasons be 106