Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/452

 the Cavaliere, as he stands, has always needed to be explained."

"He 's explained by the hypothesis that four-and-twenty years ago, at Ancona, Mrs. Light had a lover."

"I see. Ancona was dull, Mrs. Light was lively, and—four-and-twenty years ago perhaps—the Cavaliere was dangerous. Such are the dangers of dull places. Poverino!"

"He has had his compensation," Rowland said. "It has been a life for him to be near Christina. What other life could he have had?"

"What indeed? But has the girl never wondered why hers should have had to have so much of him?"

"If she had been near guessing," Rowland replied, "her mother's high way with him would have put her off the trace. Mrs. Light's view has apparently been that she could minimise her fault by minimising her lover. She has lived it down by living him down, and so she has kept her secret. But what 's the profit of a secret—as a secret!—unless you can make some use of it? The day at last came when she could turn hers to account; she could let the skeleton out of the closet and produce an effect with it."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I, morally," said Rowland. "I only conceive that there was an odious, dangerous, desperate, a very possibly vain, but, as it has turned out for her, quite successful scene. The poor Cavaliere stood outside, at the door, as livid as a corpse and as dumb. The mother and daughter had it out together. Mrs. Light burned her ships. When she 418