Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/359

THE PRINCESS away from him. "Oh I needn't tell you! She knows enough. Besides," she went on, "she doesn't believe us."

It made the Prince stare a little. "Ah she asks too much!" That drew however from his wife another moan of objection, which determined in him a judgement. "She won't let you take her for unhappy."

"Oh I know better than any one else what she won't let me take her for!"

"Very well," said Amerigo, "you'll see."

"I shall see wonders, I know. I've already seen them and am prepared for them." Maggie recalled—she had memories enough. "It's terrible "—her memories prompted her to speak. "I see it's always terrible for women."

The Prince looked down in his gravity. "Everything's terrible, cara—in the heart of man. She's making her life," he said. "She'll make it."

His wife turned back upon him; she had wandered to a table, vaguely setting objects straight. "A little by the way then too, while she's about it, she's making ours." At this he raised his eyes, which met her own, and she held him while she delivered herself of something that had been with her these last minutes. "You spoke just now of Charlotte's not having learned from you that I 'know.' Am I to take from you then that you accept and recognise my knowledge?"

He did the enquiry all the honours—visibly weighed its importance and weighed his response.

"You think I might have been showing you that a little more handsomely?" 349