se
that, for the question of going off somewhere, he'd go readily, quite
delightedly, with you. I verily believe he'd like to have you for a
while to himself."

"Do you mean he thinks of proposing it?" the Prince after a moment
sounded.

"Oh no--he doesn't ask, as you must so often have seen. But I believe
he'd go 'like a shot,' as you say, if you were to suggest it."

It had the air, she knew, of a kind of condition made, and she had asked
herself while she spoke if it wouldn't cause his arm to let her go. The
fact that it didn't suggested to her that she had made him, of a sudden,
still more intensely think, think with such concentration that he could
do but one thing at once. And it was precisely as if the concentration
had the next moment been proved in him. He took a turn inconsistent with
the superficial impression--a jump that made light of their approach to
gravity and represented for her the need in him to gain time. That she
made out, was his drawback--that the warning from her had come to him,
and had come to Charlotte, after all, too suddenly. That they were in
face of it rearranging, that they had to rearrange, was all before her
again; yet to do as they would like they must enjoy a snatch, longer or
shorter, of recovered independence. Amerigo, for the instant, was but
doing as he didn't like, and it was as if she were watching his effort
without disguise. "What's your father's idea, this year, then, about
Fawns? Will he go at Whitsuntide, and will he then stay on?"

Maggie went through the form of thought. "He will really do, I imagine,
as he has, in so many ways, so often done before; do whatever may seem
most agreeable to yourself. And there's of course always Charlotte to be
considered. Only their going early to Fawns, if they do go," she said,
"needn't in the least entail your and my going."

"Ah," Amerigo echoed, "it needn't in the least entail your and my
going?"

"We can do as we like. What they may do needn't trouble us, since
they're by good fortune perfectly happy together."

"Oh," the Prince returned, "your father's never so happy as with you
near him to enjoy his being so."

"Well, I may enjoy it," said Maggie, "but I'm not the cause of it."

"You're the cause," her husband declared, "of the greater part of
everything that's good among us." But she received this tribute in
silence, and the next moment he pursued: "If Mrs. Verver has arrears
of time with you to make up, as you say, sh