Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/344

THE GOLDEN BOWL "I take it from him," she answered.

"But what else can you do?"

"I take it from him," the Princess repeated. "I do what I knew from the first I should do. I get off by giving him up."

"But if he gives you?" Mrs. Assingham presumed to object. "Doesn't it moreover then," she asked, "complete the very purpose with which he married—that of making you and leaving you more free?"

Maggie looked at her long. "Yes—I help him to do that."

Mrs. Assingham hesitated, but at last her bravery flared. "Why not call it then frankly his complete success?"

"Well," said Maggie, "that's all that's left me to do."

"It's a success," her friend ingeniously developed, "with which you've simply not interfered." And as if to show that she spoke without levity Mrs. Assingham went further. "He has made it a success for them—!"

"Ah there you are!" Maggie responsively mused. "Yes," she said the next moment, "that's why Amerigo stays."

"Let alone that it's why Charlotte goes." And Mrs. Assingham, emboldened, smiled. "So he knows—?"

But Maggie hung back. "Amerigo—?" After which, however, she blushed—to her companion's recognition.

"Your father. He knows what you know? I mean," Fanny faltered—"well, how much does he 334