"The incredible side of it. They make it credible."
"Credible then--you do say--to YOU?"
She looked at him again for an interval. "They believe in it
themselves. They take it for what it is. And that," she said,
"saves them."
"But if what it 'is' is just their chance--?"
"It's their chance for what I told you when Charlotte first
turned up. It's their chance for the idea that I was then sure
she had."
The Colonel showed his effort to recall. "Oh, your idea, at
different moments, of any one of THEIR ideas!" This dim
procession, visibly, mustered before him, and, with the best will
in the world, he could but watch its immensity. "Are you speaking
now of something to which you can comfortably settle down?"
Again, for a little, she only glowered at him. "I've come back
to my belief, and that I have done so--"
"Well?" he asked as she paused.
"Well, shows that I'm right--for I assure you I had wandered far.
Now I'm at home again, and I mean," said Fanny Assingham, "to
stay here. They're beautiful," she declared.
"The Prince and Charlotte?"
"The Prince and Charlotte. THAT'S how they're so remarkable. And
the beauty," she explained, "is that they're afraid for them.
Afraid, I mean, for the others."
"For Mr. Verver and Maggie?" It did take some following. "Afraid
of what?"
"Afraid of themselves."
The Colonel wondered. "Of THEMSELVES? Of Mr. Verver's and
Maggie's selves?"
Mrs. Assingham remained patient as well as lucid. "Yes--of SUCH
blindness too. But most of all of their own danger."