inging HIM. The fractions of occasions, the chance minutes
that put them face to face had, as yet, of late, contrived to count but
little, between them, either for the sense of opportunity or for that
of exposure; inasmuch as the lifelong rhythm of their intercourse made
against all cursory handling of deep things. They had never availed
themselves of any given quarter-of-an-hour to gossip about fundamentals;
they moved slowly through large still spaces; they could be silent
together, at any time, beautifully, with much more comfort than
hurriedly expressive. It appeared indeed to have become true that their
common appeal measured itself, for vividness, just by this economy of
sound; they might have been talking "at" each other when they talked
with their companions, but these latter, assuredly, were not in any
directer way to gain light on the current phase of their relation. Such
were some of the reasons for which Maggie suspected fundamentals, as
I have called them, to be rising, by a new movement, to the
surface--suspected it one morning late in May, when her father presented
himself in Portland Place alone. He had his pretext--of that she was
fully aware: the Principino, two days before, had shown signs, happily
not persistent, of a feverish cold and had notoriously been obliged to
spend the interval at home. This was ground, ample ground, for punctual
inquiry; but what it wasn't ground for, she quickly found herself
reflecting, was his having managed, in the interest of his visit,
to dispense so unwontedly--as their life had recently come to be
arranged--with his wife's attendance. It had so happened that she
herself was, for the hour, exempt from her husband's, and it will at
once be seen that the hour had a quality all its own when I note that,
remembering how the Prince had looked in to say he was going out, the
Princess whimsically wondered if their respective sposi mightn't frankly
be meeting, whimsically hoped indeed they were temporarily so disposed
of. Strange was her need, at moments, to think of them as not attaching
an excessive importance to their repudiation of the general practice
that had rested only a few weeks before on such a consecrated rightness.
Repudiations, surely, were not in the air--they had none of them come to
that; for wasn't she at this minute testifying directly against them by
her own behaviour? When she should confess to fear of being alone with
her father, to fear of what he might t