ccupied all the rest of their walk, had stayed out with them and
come home with them, besides making it impossible that they shouldn't
presently feign to recollect how rejoining the child had been their
original purpose. Maggie's uneffaced note was that it had, at the end
of five minutes more, driven them to that endeavour as to a refuge, and
caused them afterwards to rejoice, as well, that the boy's irrepressibly
importunate company, in due course secured and enjoyed, with
the extension imparted by his governess, a person expectant of
consideration, constituted a cover for any awkwardness. For that was
what it had all come to, that the dear man had spoken to her to TRY
her--quite as he had been spoken to himself by Charlotte, with the same
fine idea. The Princess took it in, on the spot, firmly grasping it;
she heard them together, her father and his wife, dealing with the queer
case. "The Prince tells me that Maggie has a plan for your taking some
foreign journey with him, and, as he likes to do everything she wants,
he has suggested my speaking to you for it as the thing most likely to
make you consent. So I do speak--see?--being always so eager myself,
as you know, to meet Maggie's wishes. I speak, but without quite
understanding, this time, what she has in her head. Why SHOULD she, of
a sudden, at this particular moment, desire to ship you off together and
to remain here alone with me? The compliment's all to me, I admit, and
you must decide quite as you like. The Prince is quite ready, evidently,
to do his part--but you'll have it out with him. That is you'll have
it out with HER." Something of that kind was what, in her mind's ear,
Maggie heard--and this, after his waiting for her to appeal to him
directly, was her father's invitation to her to have it out. Well, as
she could say to herself all the rest of the day, that was what they did
while they continued to sit there in their penny chairs, that was what
they HAD done as much as they would now ever, ever, have out anything.
The measure of this, at least, had been given, that each would fight to
the last for the protection, for the perversion, of any real anxiety.
She had confessed, instantly, with her humbugging grin, not flinching by
a hair, meeting his eyes as mildly as he met hers, she had confessed
to her fancy that they might both, he and his son-in-law, have welcomed
such an escapade, since they had both been so long so furiously
domestic. She had almost c