Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/198

THE GOLDEN BOWL there may still be something in it for you—if you're capable of working with me to get that out. Consider of course as you must the question of what you may have to surrender on your side, what price you may have to pay, whom you may have to pay with, to set this advantage free; but take in at any rate that there is something for you if you don't too blindly spoil your chance for it." He went no nearer the damnatory pieces, but he eyed them from where he stood with a degree of recognition just visibly less to be dissimulated; all of which represented for her a certain traceable process. And her uttered words meanwhile were different enough from those he might have inserted between the lines of her already-spoken. "It's the golden bowl, you know, that you saw at the little antiquario's in Bloomsbury so long ago—when you went there with Charlotte, when you spent those hours with her, unknown to me, a day or two before our marriage. It was shown you both, but you didn't take it; you left it for me, and I came upon it, extraordinarily, through happening to go into the same shop on Monday last; in walking home, in prowling about to pick up some small old thing for father's birthday after my visit to the Museum, my appointment there with Mr. Crichton, of which I told you. It was shown me and I was struck with it and took it—knowing nothing about it at the time. What I now know I've learned since—I learned this afternoon, a couple of hours ago; receiving from it naturally a great impression. So there it is—in its three pieces. You can handle them—don't be afraid—if you want to make sure the thing is the thing you and Charlotte saw together. Its 188