of them; and it was now for them, positively, as if
their handful of flowers--since Mrs. Rance was a handful!--had been but
the vehicle of a dangerous snake. Mr. Verver fairly felt in the air the
Miss Lutches' imputation--in the intensity of which, really, his own
propriety might have been involved.

That, none the less, was but a flicker; what made the real difference,
as I have hinted, was his mute passage with Maggie. His daughter's
anxiety alone had depths, and it opened out for him the wider that it
was altogether new. When, in their common past, when till this moment,
had she shown a fear, however dumbly, for his individual life? They
had had fears together, just as they had had joys, but all of hers, at
least, had been for what equally concerned them. Here of a sudden was
a question that concerned him alone, and the soundless explosion of it
somehow marked a date. He was on her mind, he was even in a manner on
her hands--as a distinct thing, that is, from being, where he had always
been, merely deep in her heart and in her life; too deep down, as it
were, to be disengaged, contrasted or opposed, in short objectively
presented. But time finally had done it; their relation was altered:
he SAW, again, the difference lighted for her. This marked it to
himself--and it wasn't a question simply of a Mrs. Rance the more or the
less. For Maggie too, at a stroke, almost beneficently, their visitor
had, from being an inconvenience, become a sign. They had made vacant,
by their marriage, his immediate foreground, his personal precinct--they
being the Princess and the Prince. They had made room in it for
others--so others had become aware. He became aware himself, for that
matter, during the minute Maggie stood there before speaking; and with
the sense, moreover, of what he saw her see, he had the sense of what
she saw HIM. This last, it may be added, would have been his intensest
perception had there not, the next instant, been more for him in Fanny
Assingham. Her face couldn't keep it from him; she had seen, on top of
everything, in her quick way, what they both were seeing.

IX

So much mute communication was doubtless, all this time, marvellous,
and we may confess to having perhaps read into the scene, prematurely,
a critical character that took longer to develop. Yet the quiet hour of
reunion enjoyed that afternoon by the father and the daughter did really
little else than deal with