But it made her hesitate too; she wouldn't speak of her father
directly. "To everyone. To her--now that you understand."
It held poor Fanny again in wonder. "To Charlotte--yes: if
there's so much beneath it, for you, and if it's all such a plan.
That makes it hang together it makes YOU hang together." She
fairly exhaled her admiration. "You're like nobody else--you're
extraordinary."
Maggie met it with appreciation, but with a reserve. "No, I'm not
extraordinary--but I AM, for every one, quiet."
"Well, that's just what is extraordinary. 'Quiet' is more than
_I_ am, and you leave me far behind." With which, again, for an
instant, Mrs. Assingham frankly brooded. "'Now that I
understand,' you say--but there's one thing I don't understand."
And the next minute, while her companion waited, she had
mentioned it. "How can Charlotte, after all, not have pressed
him, not have attacked him about it? How can she not have asked
him--asked him on his honour, I mean--if you know?"
"How can she 'not'? Why, of course," said the Princess limpidly,
"she MUST!"
"Well then--?"
"Well then, you think, he must have told her? Why, exactly what I
mean," said Maggie, "is that he will have done nothing of the
sort; will, as I say, have maintained the contrary."
Fanny Assingham weighed it. "Under her direct appeal for the
truth?"
"Under her direct appeal for the truth."
"Her appeal to his honour?"
"Her appeal to his honour. That's my point."