"For love," Maggie said again.
It was, for the moment, as if the distinctness of this might have
determined in her companion a choice between two or three highly
different alternatives. Mrs. Assingham's rejoinder, at all
events--however much or however little it was a choice--was
presently a triumph. "Speaking with this love of your own then,
have you undertaken to convey to me that you believe your husband
and your father's wife to be in act and in fact lovers of each
other?" And then as the Princess didn't at first answer: "Do you
call such an allegation as that 'mild'?"
"Oh, I'm not pretending to be mild to you. But I've told you, and
moreover you must have seen for yourself, how much so I've been
to them."
Mrs. Assingham, more brightly again, bridled. "Is that what you
call it when you make them, for terror as you say, do as you
like?"
"Ah, there wouldn't be any terror for them if they had nothing to
hide."
Mrs. Assingham faced her--quite steady now. "Are you really
conscious, love, of what you're saying?"
"I'm saying that I'm bewildered and tormented, and that I've no
one but you to speak to. I've thought, I've in fact been sure,
that you've seen for yourself how much this is the case. It's why
I've believed you would meet me half way."
"Half way to what? To denouncing," Fanny asked, "two persons,
friends of years, whom I've always immensely admired and liked,
and against whom I haven't the shadow of a charge to make?"
Maggie looked at her with wide eyes. "I had much rather you
should denounce me than denounce them. Denounce me, denounce me,"
she said, "if you can see your way." It was exactly what she
appeared to have argued out with herself. "If, conscientiously,
you can denounce me; if, conscientiously, you can revile me; if,
conscientiously, you can put me in my place for a low-minded
little pig--!"
"Well?" said Mrs. Assingham, consideringly, as she paused for
emphasis.
"I think I shall be saved."
Her friend took it, for a minute, however, by carrying thoughtful
eyes, eyes verily portentous, over her head. "You say you've no
one to speak to, and you make a point of your having so disguised
your feelings--not having, as you call it, given yourself away.
Have you then never seen it not only as your right, but as your
bounden duty, worked up to such a pitch, to speak to your
husband?"
"I've spoken to him," said Maggie.
Mrs. Assingham stared. "Ah, then it isn't true that you've made
no sign."
Maggie had a silence. "I've made no trouble. I've made no scene.
I've taken no stand. I've neither reproached nor accused him.
You'll say there's a way in all that of being nasty enough."
"Oh!" dropped from Fanny as if she couldn't help it.
"But I don't think--strangely enough--that he regards me as
nasty. I think that at bottom--for that IS," said the Princess,
"the strangeness--he's sorry for me. Yes, I think that, deep
within, he pities me."
Her companion wondered. "For the state you've let yourself get
into?"
"For not being happy when I've so much to make me so."
"You've everything," said Mrs. Assingham with alacrity. Yet she
remained for an instant embarrassed as to a further advance. "I
don't understand, however, how, if you've done nothing--"
An impatience from Maggie had checked her. "I've not done
absolutely 'nothing.'"
"But what then--?"
"Well," she went on after a minute, "he knows what I've done."
It produced on Mrs. Assingham's part, her whole tone and manner
exquisitely aiding, a hush not less prolonged, and the very
duration of which inevitably gave it something of the character
of an equal recognition. "And what then has HE done?"