nderful, windless,
waiting, golden hour, under the influence of which Adam Verver met his
genial friend as she came to drop into the post-box with her own hand
a thick sheaf of letters. They presently thereafter left the house
together and drew out half-an-hour on the terrace in a manner they were
to revert to in thought, later on, as that of persons who really had
been taking leave of each other at a parting of the ways. He traced his
impression, on coming to consider, back to a mere three words she
had begun by using about Charlotte Stant. She simply "cleared them
out"--those had been the three words, thrown off in reference to the
general golden peace that the Kentish October had gradually ushered in,
the "halcyon" days the full beauty of which had appeared to shine out
for them after Charlotte's arrival. For it was during these days that
Mrs. Rance and the Miss Lutches had been observed to be gathering
themselves for departure, and it was with that difference made that the
sense of the whole situation showed most fair--the sense of how right
they had been to engage for so ample a residence, and of all the
pleasure so fruity an autumn there could hold in its lap. This was
what had occurred, that their lesson had been learned; and what Mrs.
Assingham had dwelt upon was that without Charlotte it would have been
learned but half. It would certainly not have been taught by Mrs. Rance
and the Miss Lutches if these ladies had remained with them as long as
at one time seemed probable. Charlotte's light intervention had thus
become a cause, operating covertly but none the less actively, and Fanny
Assingham's speech, which she had followed up a little, echoed within
him, fairly to startle him, as the indication of something irresistible.
He could see now how this superior force had worked, and he fairly liked
to recover the sight--little harm as he dreamed of doing, little ill
as he dreamed of wishing, the three ladies, whom he had after all
entertained for a stiffish series of days. She had been so vague and
quiet about it, wonderful Charlotte, that he hadn't known what was
happening--happening, that is, as a result of her influence. "Their
fires, as they felt her, turned to smoke," Mrs. Assingham remarked;
which he was to reflect on indeed even while they strolled. He had
retained, since his long talk with Maggie--the talk that had settled the
matter of his own direct invitation to her friend--an odd little taste,
as he woul