Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/125

THE PRINCESS aggravate me, somehow work upon me. As I insisted that they must, that we couldn't all fail—though father and Charlotte hadn't really accepted; as I did this they had to yield to the fear that their showing as afraid to move together would count for them as the greater danger: which would be the danger, you see, of my feeling myself wronged. Their least danger, they know, is in going on with all the things that I've seemed to accept and that I've given no indication at any moment of not accepting. Everything that has come up for them has come up, in an extraordinary manner, without my having by a sound or a sign given myself away—so that it's all as wonderful as you may conceive. They move at any rate among the dangers I speak of—between that of their doing too much and that of their not having any longer the confidence or the nerve, or whatever you may call it, to do enough." Her tone might by this time have shown a strangeness to match her smile; which was still more marked as she wound up: "And that's how I make them do what I like!"

It had an effect on Mrs. Assingham, who rose with the deliberation that from point to point marked the widening of her grasp. "My dear child, you're amazing."

"Amazing—?"

"You're terrible."

Maggie thoughtfully shook her head. "No; I'm not terrible, and you don't think me so. I do strike you as surprising, no doubt—but surprisingly mild. Because—don't you see?—I am mild. I can bear anything." 115