n to so much as judge, that it
positively quickened her fever to have to recognise, in this case, such
a lapse of all the sequences. It was only that a charming clever woman
wondered about her--that is wondered about her as Amerigo's wife, and
wondered, moreover, with the intention of kindness and the spontaneity,
almost, of surprise.

The point of view--that one--was what she read in their free
contemplation, in that of the whole eight; there was something in
Amerigo to be explained, and she was passed about, all tenderly
and expertly, like a dressed doll held, in the right manner, by its
firmly-stuffed middle, for the account she could give. She might have
been made to give it by pressure of her stomach; she might have been
expected to articulate, with a rare imitation of nature, "Oh yes, I'm
HERE all the while; I'm also in my way a solid little fact and I cost
originally a great deal of money: cost, that is, my father, for
my outfit, and let in my husband for an amount of pains--toward my
training--that money would scarce represent." Well, she WOULD meet them
in some such way, and she translated her idea into action, after dinner,
before they dispersed, by engaging them all, unconventionally, almost
violently, to dine with her in Portland Place, just as they were, if
they didn't mind the same party, which was the party she wanted. Oh she
was going, she was going--she could feel it afresh; it was a good deal
as if she had sneezed ten times or had suddenly burst into a comic song.
There were breaks in the connection, as there would be hitches in the
process; she didn't wholly see, yet, what they would do for her, nor
quite how, herself, she should handle them; but she was dancing up and
down, beneath her propriety, with the thought that she had at least
begun something--she so fairly liked to feel that she was a point for
convergence of wonder. It wasn't after all, either, that THEIR wonder so
much signified--that of the cornered six, whom it glimmered before her
that she might still live to drive about like a flock of sheep: the
intensity of her consciousness, its sharpest savour, was in the theory
of her having diverted, having, as they said, captured the attention
of Amerigo and Charlotte, at neither of whom, all the while, did she
so much as once look. She had pitched them in with the six, for that
matter, so far as they themselves were concerned; they had dropped, for
the succession of minutes, out of contact with