Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/140

THE GOLDEN BOWL "She lets me off. So that now, horrified and contrite at what I've done, I may work to help her out. And Mr. Verver," she was fond of adding, "lets me off too."

"Then you do believe he knows?"

It determined in her always there, with a significant pause, a deep immersion in her thought. "I believe he'd let me off if he did know—so that I might work to help him out. Or rather, really," she went on, "that I might work to help Maggie. That would be his motive, that would be his condition, in forgiving me; just as hers for me in fact, her motive and her condition, are my acting to spare her father. But it's with Maggie only that I'm directly concerned; nothing ever—not a breath, not a look, I'll guarantee—shall I have, whatever happens, from Mr. Verver himself. So it is therefore that I shall probably by the closest possible shave escape the penalty of my crimes."

"You mean being held responsible."

"I mean being held responsible. My advantage will be that Maggie's such a trump."

"Such a trump that, as you say, she'll stick to you."

"Stick to me, on our understanding—stick to me. For our understanding's signed and sealed." And to brood over it again was ever for Mrs. Assingham to break out again with exaltation. "It's a grand high compact. She has solemnly promised."

"But in words—?"

"Oh yes, in words enough—since it's a matter of words. To keep up her lie so long as I keep up mine."

"And what do you call 'her' lie?" 130