r's, beside you--we must always be 'doing' something. However,"
Charlotte pursued, "if you had gone out you might have missed the chance
of me--which I'm sure, though you won't confess it, was what you didn't
want; and might have missed, above all, the satisfaction that, look
blank about it as you will, I've come to congratulate you on. That's
really what I can at last do. You can't not know at least, on such a day
as this--you can't not know," she said, "where you are." She waited as
for him either to grant that he knew or to pretend that he didn't;
but he only drew a long deep breath which came out like a moan of
impatience. It brushed aside the question of where he was or what he
knew; it seemed to keep the ground clear for the question of his visitor
herself, that of Charlotte Verver exactly as she sat there. So, for some
moments, with their long look, they but treated the matter in silence;
with the effect indeed, by the end of the time, of having considerably
brought it on. This was sufficiently marked in what Charlotte next said.
"There it all is--extraordinary beyond words. It makes such a relation
for us as, I verily believe, was never before in the world thrust upon
two well-meaning creatures. Haven't we therefore to take things as we
find them?" She put the question still more directly than that of
a moment before, but to this one, as well, he returned no immediate
answer. Noticing only that she had finished her tea, he relieved her
of her cup, carried it back to the table, asked her what more she would
have; and then, on her "Nothing, thanks," returned to the fire and
restored a displaced log to position by a small but almost too effectual
kick. She had meanwhile got up again, and it was on her feet that she
repeated the words she had first frankly spoken. "What else can we do,
what in all the world else?"

He took them up, however, no more than at first. "Where then have you
been?" he asked as from mere interest in her adventure.

"Everywhere I could think of--except to see people. I didn't
want people--I wanted too much to think. But I've been back at
intervals--three times; and then come away again. My cabman must think
me crazy--it's very amusing; I shall owe him, when we come to settle,
more money than he has ever seen. I've been, my dear," she went on, "to
the British Museum--which, you know, I always adore. And I've been to
the National Gallery, and to a dozen old booksellers', coming across
treasure