ill the fit had
changed, become the sign, unfailingly, of the advent of the other; and
it was emblazoned, in rich colour, on the bright face of this period,
that Mrs. Verver only wished to know, on any occasion, what was expected
of her, only held herself there for instructions, in order even to
better them if possible. The two young women, while the passage lasted,
became again very much the companions of other days, the days of
Charlotte's prolonged visits to the admiring and bountiful Maggie, the
days when equality of condition for them had been all the result of the
latter's native vagueness about her own advantages. The earlier elements
flushed into life again, the frequency, the intimacy, the high pitch of
accompanying expression--appreciation, endearment, confidence; the rarer
charm produced in each by this active contribution to the felicity of
the other: all enhanced, furthermore--enhanced or qualified, who should
say which?--by a new note of diplomacy, almost of anxiety, just sensible
on Charlotte's part in particular; of intensity of observance, in the
matter of appeal and response, in the matter of making sure the Princess
might be disposed or gratified, that resembled an attempt to play again,
with more refinement, at disparity of relation. Charlotte's attitude
had, in short, its moments of flowering into pretty excesses of
civility, self-effacements in the presence of others, sudden little
formalisms of suggestion and recognition, that might have represented
her sense of the duty of not "losing sight" of a social distinction.
This impression came out most for Maggie when, in their easier
intervals, they had only themselves to regard, and when her companion's
inveteracy of never passing first, of not sitting till she was seated,
of not interrupting till she appeared to give leave, of not forgetting,
too, familiarly, that in addition to being important she was also
sensitive, had the effect of throwing over their intercourse a kind
of silver tissue of decorum. It hung there above them like a canopy of
state, a reminder that though the lady-in-waiting was an established
favourite, safe in her position, a little queen, however, good-natured,
was always a little queen and might, with small warning, remember it.

And yet another of these concomitants of feverish success, all the
while, was the perception that in another quarter too things were
being made easy. Charlotte's alacrity in meeting her had, in one sense