And their reason is what you call their romance?
She looked at him a moment. What do you want more?
Didnt HE, the Colonel inquired, want anything more? Or didnt, for that matter, poor Charlotte herself?
She kept her eyes on him; there was a manner in it that half answered. They were thoroughly in love. She might have been his She checked herself; she even for a minute lost herself. She might have been anything she likedexcept his wife.
But she wasnt, said the Colonel very smokingly.
She wasnt, Mrs. Assingham echoed.
The echo, not loud but deep, filled for a little the room. He seemed to listen to it die away; then he began again. How are you sure?
She waited before saying, but when she spoke it was definite. There wasnt time.
He had a small laugh for her reason; he might have expected some other. Does it take so much time?
She herself, however, remained serious. It takes more than they had.
He was detached, but he wondered. What was the matter with their time? After which, as, remembering it all, living it over and piecing it together, she only considered, You mean that you came in with your idea? he demanded.
It brought her quickly to the point, and as if also in a measure to answer herself. Not a bit of itTHEN. But you surely recall, she went on, the way, a year ago, everything took place. They had parted before he had ever heard of Maggie.
Why hadnt he heard of her from Charlotte herself?
Because she had never spoken of her.
Is that also, the Colonel inquired, what she has told you?
Im not speaking, his wife returned, of what she has told me. Thats one thing. Im speaking of what I know by myself. Thats another.
You feel, in other words, that she lies to you? Bob Assingham more sociably asked.
She neglected the question, treating it as gross. She never so much, at the time, as named Maggie.
It was so positive that it appeared to strike him. Its he then who has told you?
She after a moment admitted it. Its he.
And he doesnt lie?
Noto do him justice. I believe he absolutely doesnt. If I hadnt believed it, Mrs. Assingham declared, for her general justification, I would have had nothing to do with himthat is in this connection. Hes a gentlemanI mean ALL as much of one as he ought to be. And he had nothing to gain. That helps, she added, even a gentleman. It was I who named Maggie to hima year from last May. He had never heard of her before.
Then its grave, said the Colonel.
She hesitated. Do you mean grave for me?
Oh, that everythings grave for you is what we take for granted and are fundamentally talking about. Its graveit WASfor Charlotte. And its grave for Maggie. That is it WASwhen he did see her. Or when she did see HIM.
You dont torment me as much as you would like, she presently went on, because you think of nothing that I havent a thousand times thought of, and because I think of everything that you never will. It would all, she recognised, have been grave if it hadnt all been right. You cant make out, she contended, that we got to Rome before the end of February.
He more than agreed. Theres nothing in life, my dear, that I CAN make out.
Well, there was nothing in life, apparently, that she, at real need, couldnt. Charlotte, who had been there, that year, from early, quite from November, left suddenly, youll quite remember, about the 10th of April. She was to have stayed onshe was to have stayed, naturally, more or less, for us; and she was to have stayed all the more that the Ververs, due all winter, but delayed, week after week, in Paris, were at last really coming. They were comingthat is Maggie waslargely to see her, and above all to be with her THERE. It was all alteredby Charlottes going to Florence. She went from one day to the otheryou forget everything. She gave her reasons, but I thought it odd, at the time; I had a sense that something must have happened. The difficulty was that, though I knew a little, I didnt know enough. I didnt know her relation with him had been, as you say, a near thingthat is I didnt know HOW near. The poor girls departure was a flightshe went to save herself.
He had listened more than he showedas came out in his tone. To save herself?
Well, also, really, I think, to save HIM too. I saw it afterwardsI see it all now. He would have been sorryhe didnt want to hurt her.
Oh, I daresay, the Colonel laughed. They generally dont!
At all events, his wife pursued, she escapedthey both did; for they had had simply to face it. Their marriage couldnt be, and, if that was so, the sooner they put the Apennines between them the better. It had taken them, it is true, some time to feel this and to find it out. They had met constantly, and not always publicly, all that winter; they had met more than was knownthough it was a good deal known. More, certainly, she said, than I then imaginedthough I dont know what difference it would after all have made with me. I liked him, I thought him charming, from the first of our knowing him; and now, after more than a year, he has done nothing to spoil it. And there are things he might have donethings that many men easily would. Therefore I believe in him, and I was right, at first, in knowing I was going to. So I haventand she stated it as she might have quoted from a slate, after adding up the items, the sum of a column of figuresso I havent, I say to myself, been a fool.
Well, are you trying to make out that Ive said you have? All their case wants, at any rate, Bob Assingham declared, is that you should leave it well alone. Its theirs now; theyve bought it, over the counter, and paid for it. It has ceased to be yours.
Of which case, she asked, are you speaking?
He smoked a minute: then with a groan: Lord, are there so many?
Theres Maggies and the Princes, and theres the Princes and Charlottes.
Oh yes; and then, the Colonel scoffed, theres Charlottes and the Princes.
Theres Maggies and Charlottes, she went onand theres also Maggies and mine. I think too that theres Charlottes and mine. Yes, she mused, Charlottes and mine is certainly a case. In short, you see, there are plenty. But I mean, she said, to keep my head.
Are we to settle them all, he inquired, to-night?
I should lose it if things had happened otherwiseif I had acted with any folly. She had gone on in her earnestness, unheeding of his question. I shouldnt be able to bear that now. But my good conscience is my strength; no one can accuse me. The Ververs came on to Rome aloneCharlotte, after their days with her in Florence, had decided about America. Maggie, I daresay, had helped her; she must have made her a present, and a handsome one, so that many things were easy. Charlotte left them, came to England, joined somebody or other, sailed for New York. I have still her letter from Milan, telling me; I didnt know at the moment all that was behind it, but I felt in it nevertheless the undertaking of a new life. Certainly, in any case, it cleared THAT airI mean the dear old Roman, in which we were steeped. It left the field freeit gave me a free hand. There was no question for me of anybody else when I brought the two others together. More than that, there was no question for them. So you see, she concluded, where that puts me. She got up, on the words, very much as if they were the blue daylight towards which, through a darksome tunnel, she had been pushing her way, and the elation in her voice, combined with her recovered alertness, might have signified the sharp whistle of the train that shoots at last into the open. She turned about the room; she looked out a moment into the August night; she stopped, here and there, before the flowers in bowls and vases. Yes, it was distinctly as if she had proved what was needing proof, as if the issue of her operation had been, almost unexpectedly, a success. Old arithmetic had perhaps been fallacious, but the new settled the question. Her husband, oddly, however, kept his place without apparently measuring these results. As he had been amused at her intensity, so he was not uplifted by her relief; his interest might in fact have been more enlisted than he allowed. Do you mean, he presently asked, that he had already forgot about Charlotte?