her place; since
the work was done for her she felt no weight, and it wasn't too much
to acknowledge that she had scarce to turn round. She had a long pause
before the fire during which she might have been fixing with intensity
her projected vision, have been conscious even of its taking an absurd,
fantastic shape. She might have been watching the family coach pass and
noting that, somehow, Amerigo and Charlotte were pulling it while she
and her father were not so much as pushing. They were seated inside
together, dandling the Principino and holding him up to the windows, to
see and be seen, like an infant positively royal; so that the exertion
was ALL with the others. Maggie found in this image a repeated
challenge; again and yet again she paused before the fire: after which,
each time, in the manner of one for whom a strong light has suddenly
broken, she gave herself to livelier movement. She had seen herself at
last, in the picture she was studying, suddenly jump from the coach;
whereupon, frankly, with the wonder of the sight, her eyes opened wider
and her heart stood still for a moment. She looked at the person so
acting as if this person were somebody else, waiting with intensity
to see what would follow. The person had taken a decision--which was
evidently because an impulse long gathering had at last felt a
sharpest pressure. Only how was the decision to be applied?--what, in
particular, would the figure in the picture do? She looked about her,
from the middle of the room, under the force of this question, as if
THERE, exactly, were the field of action involved. Then, as the door
opened again, she recognised, whatever the action, the form, at any
rate, of a first opportunity. Her husband had reappeared--he stood
before her refreshed, almost radiant, quite reassuring. Dressed,
anointed, fragrant, ready, above all, for his dinner, he smiled at her
over the end of their delay. It was as if her opportunity had depended
on his look--and now she saw that it was good. There was still, for the
instant, something in suspense, but it passed more quickly than on his
previous entrance. He was already holding out his arms. It was, for
hours and hours, later on, as if she had somehow been lifted aloft,
were floated and carried on some warm high tide beneath which stumbling
blocks had sunk out of sight. This came from her being again, for the
time, in the enjoyment of confidence, from her knowing, as she believed,
what to do.