Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/312

THE GOLDEN BOWL for safety, appeared to have at heart to make a demonstration. The stage of "talking over" had long passed for them; when they communicated now it was on quite ultimate facts; but Fanny desired to testify to the existence, on her part, of an attention that nothing escaped. She was like the kind lady who, happening to linger at the circus while the rest of the spectators pour grossly through the exits, falls in with the overworked little trapezist girl—the acrobatic support presumably of embarrassed and exacting parents—and gives her, as an obscure and meritorious artist, assurance of charitable interest. What was clearest always in our young woman's imaginings was the sense of being herself left for any occasion in the breach. She was essentially there to bear the burden, in the last resort, of surrounding omissions and evasions, and it was eminently to that office she had been to-day abandoned—with this one alleviation, as appeared, of Mrs. Assingham's keeping up with her. Mrs. Assingham suggested that she too was still on the ramparts—though her gallantry proved indeed after a moment to consist not a little of her curiosity. She had looked about and seen their companions beyond earshot.

"Don't you really want us to go—?"

Maggie found a faint smile. "Do you really want to—?"

It made her friend colour. "Well then—no. But we would, you know, at a look from you. We 'd pack up and be off—as a sacrifice."

"Ah make no sacrifice," said Maggie. "See me through." 302