nd it still awkward. "How much, I mean, they did. How
far"--she touched it up--"they went."

Maggie had waited, but only with a question. "Do you think he does?"

"Know at least something? Oh, about him I can't think. He's beyond me,"
said Fanny Assingham.

"Then do you yourself know?"

"How much--?"

"How much."

"How far--?"

"How far."

Fanny had appeared to wish to make sure, but there was something she
remembered--remembered in time and even with a smile. "I've told you
before that I know absolutely nothing."

"Well--that's what _I_ know," said the Princess.

Her friend again hesitated. "Then nobody knows--? I mean," Mrs.
Assingham explained, "how much your father does."

Oh, Maggie showed that she understood. "Nobody."

"Not--a little--Charlotte?"

"A little?" the Princess echoed. "To know anything would be, for her, to
know enough."

"And she doesn't know anything?"

"If she did," Maggie answered, "Amerigo would."

"And that's just it--that he doesn't?"

"That's just it," said the Princess profoundly.

On which Mrs. Assingham reflected. "Then how is Charlotte so held?"

"Just by that."

"By her ignorance?"

"By her ignorance." Fanny wondered. "A torment--?"

"A torment," said Maggie with tears in her eyes.

Her companion a moment watched them. "But the Prince then--?"

"How is HE held?" Maggie asked.

"How is HE held?"

"Oh, I can't tell you that!" And the Princess again broke off.

XLI

A telegram, in Charlotte's name, arrived early--"We shall come and ask
you for tea at five, if convenient to you. Am wiring for the Assinghams
to lunch." This document, into which meanings were to be read, Maggie
promptly placed before her husband, adding the remark that her father
and his wife, who would have come up the previous night or that morning,
had evidently gone to an hotel. The Prince was in his "own" room, where
he often sat now alone; half-a-dozen open newspapers, the "Figaro"
notably, as well as the "Times," were scattered about him; but, with a
cigar in his teeth and a visible cloud on his brow, he appeared actually
to be engaged in walking to and fro. Never yet, on thus approaching
him--for she had done it of late, under one necessity or another,
several times--had a particular impression so greeted her; supremely
strong, for some reason, as he turned quickly round on her entrance. The
reason was partly the look in his face--a suffusion like the