Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/168

THE GOLDEN BOWL that might divert him, her mention in fine of his fortitude under presents, having meanwhile naturally, it should be said, much less an amplitude of insistence on the speaker's lips than a power to produce on the part of the listener herself the prompt response and full comprehension of memory and sympathy, of old amused observation. The picture was filled out by the latter's fond fancy. But Maggie was at any rate under arms; she knew what she was doing and had already her plan—a plan for making, for allowing as yet, "no difference"; in accordance with which she would still dine out, and not with red eyes nor convulsed features nor neglected items of appearance, nor anything that would raise a question. Yet there was some knowledge that exactly to this support of her not breaking down she desired, she required, possession of; and with the sinister rise and fall of lightning unaccompanied by thunder it played before Mrs. Assingham's eyes that she herself should have, at whatever risk or whatever cost, to supply her with the stuff of her need. All our friend's instinct was to hold off from this till she should see what the ground would bear; she would take no step nearer unless intelligibly to meet her, and, awkward though it might be to hover there only pale and distorted, with mere imbecilities of vagueness, there was a quality of bald help in the fact of not as yet guessing what such an ominous start could lead to. She caught, however, after a second's thought, at the Princess's allusion to her lost reassurance.

"You mean you were so at your ease on Monday—the night you dined with us?" 158