suffer, odiously, helplessly, in
public--which could be prevented but by her breaking off, with whatever
inconsequence; by her treating their discussion as ended and getting
away. She suddenly wanted to go home much as she had wanted, an hour
or two before, to come. She wanted to leave well behind her both her
question and the couple in whom it had, abruptly, taken such vivid
form--but it was dreadful to have the appearance of disconcerted flight.
Discussion had of itself, to her sense, become danger--such light, as
from open crevices, it let in; and the overt recognition of danger was
worse than anything else. The worst in fact came while she was thinking
how she could retreat and still not overtly recognise. Her face had
betrayed her trouble, and with that she was lost. "I'm afraid, however,"
the Prince said, "that I, for some reason, distress you--for which I beg
your pardon. We've always talked so well together--it has been, from
the beginning, the greatest pull for me." Nothing so much as such a tone
could have quickened her collapse; she felt he had her now at his mercy,
and he showed, as he went on, that he knew it. "We shall talk again, all
the same, better than ever--I depend on it too much. Don't you remember
what I told you, so definitely, one day before my marriage?--that,
moving as I did in so many ways among new things, mysteries, conditions,
expectations, assumptions different from any I had known, I looked to
you, as my original sponsor, my fairy godmother, to see me through. I
beg you to believe," he added, "that I look to you yet."

His very insistence had, fortunately, the next moment, affected her as
bringing her help; with which, at least, she could hold up her head to
speak. "Ah, you ARE through--you were through long ago. Or if you aren't
you ought to be."

"Well then, if I ought to be it's all the more reason why you should
continue to help me. Because, very distinctly, I assure you, I'm not.
The new things or ever so many of them--are still for me new things;
the mysteries and expectations and assumptions still contain an immense
element that I've failed to puzzle out. As we've happened, so luckily,
to find ourselves again really taking hold together, you must let me, as
soon as possible, come to see you; you must give me a good, kind
hour. If you refuse it me"--and he addressed himself to her continued
reserve--"I shall feel that you deny, with a stony stare, your
responsibility."

At this,