might so well, you know, otherwise."

"'Otherwise'?"--and Fanny was still vague.

It passed, this time, over her companion, whose eyes, wandering, to
a distance, found themselves held. The Prince was at hand again; the
Ambassador was still at his side; they were stopped a moment by a
uniformed personage, a little old man, of apparently the highest
military character, bristling with medals and orders. This gave
Charlotte time to go on. "He has not been for three months." And then as
with her friend's last word in her ear: "'Otherwise'--yes. He arranges
otherwise. And in my position," she added, "I might too. It's too absurd
we shouldn't meet."

"You've met, I gather," said Fanny Assingham, "to-night."

"Yes--as far as that goes. But what I mean is that I might--placed for
it as we both are--go to see HIM."

"And do you?" Fanny asked with almost mistaken solemnity.

The perception of this excess made Charlotte, whether for gravity or for
irony, hang fire a minute. "I HAVE been. But that's nothing," she said,
"in itself, and I tell you of it only to show you how our situation
works. It essentially becomes one, a situation, for both of us. The
Prince's, however, is his own affair--I meant but to speak of mine."

"Your situation's perfect," Mrs. Assingham presently declared.

"I don't say it isn't. Taken, in fact, all round, I think it is. And I
don't, as I tell you, complain of it. The only thing is that I have to
act as it demands of me."

"To 'act'?" said Mrs. Assingham with an irrepressible quaver.

"Isn't it acting, my dear, to accept it? I do accept it. What do you
want me to do less?"

"I want you to believe that you're a very fortunate person."

"Do you call that LESS?" Charlotte asked with a smile. "From the point
of view of my freedom I call it more. Let it take, my position, any name
you like."

"Don't let it, at any rate"--and Mrs. Assingham's impatience prevailed
at last over her presence of mind--"don't let it make you think too much
of your freedom."

"I don't know what you call too much--for how can I not see it as it
is? You'd see your own quickly enough if the Colonel gave you the same
liberty--and I haven't to tell you, with your so much greater knowledge
of everything, what it is that gives such liberty most. For yourself
personally of course," Charlotte went on, "you only know the state of
neither needing it nor missing it. Your husband doesn't treat you as of
less importance to him tha