Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/317

THE PRINCESS a distance, from sight and carried, naturally, so as to conceal the head and back of its bearer; but Maggie had quickly recognised the white dress and the particular motion of this adventurer—had taken in that Charlotte, of all people, had chosen the glare of noon for an exploration of the gardens and that she could be betaking herself only to some unvisited quarter deep in them or beyond them that she had already marked as a superior refuge. The Princess kept her for a few minutes in sight, watched her long enough to feel her, by the mere betrayal of her pace and direction, driven in a kind of flight, and then understood for herself why the act of sitting still had become impossible to either of them. There came to her confusedly some echo of an ancient fable—some vision of Io goaded by the gadfly or of Ariadne roaming the lone sea-strand. It brought with it all the sense of her own intention and desire; she too might have been for the hour some far-off harassed heroine—only with a part to play for which she knew exactly no inspiring precedent. She knew but that all the while—all the while of her sitting there among the others without her—she had wanted to go straight to this detached member of the party and make somehow, for her support, the last demonstration. A pretext was all that was needful, and Maggie after another instant had found one.

She had caught a glimpse, before Mrs. Verver disappeared, of her carrying a book—made out, half-lost in the folds of her white dress, the dark cover of a volume that was to explain her purpose in case of her being met with surprise, and the mate of which 307