e asked; and all the more that he
could admire and like her for it.

The particular appearance she would, as they said, go in for was that
of having no account whatever to give him--it would be in fact that of
having none to give anybody--of reasons or of motives, of comings or of
goings. She was a charming young woman who had met him before, but she
was also a charming young woman with a life of her own. She would take
it high--up, up, up, ever so high. Well then, he would do the same; no
height would be too great for them, not even the dizziest conceivable
to a young person so subtle. The dizziest seemed indeed attained when,
after another moment, she came as near as she was to come to an apology
for her abruptness.

"I've been thinking of Maggie, and at last I yearned for her. I wanted
to see her happy--and it doesn't strike me I find you too shy to tell me
I SHALL."

"Of course she's happy, thank God! Only it's almost terrible, you know,
the happiness of young, good, generous creatures. It rather frightens
one. But the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints," said the Prince, "have
her in their keeping."

"Certainly they have. She's the dearest of the dear. But I needn't tell
you," the girl added.

"Ah," he returned with gravity, "I feel that I've still much to learn
about her." To which he subjoined "She'll rejoice awfully in your being
with us."

"Oh, you don't need me!" Charlotte smiled. "It's her hour. It's a great
hour. One has seen often enough, with girls, what it is. But that," she
said, "is exactly why. Why I've wanted, I mean, not to miss it."

He bent on her a kind, comprehending face. "You mustn't miss anything."
He had got it, the pitch, and he could keep it now, for all he had
needed was to have it given him. The pitch was the happiness of his wife
that was to be--the sight of that happiness as a joy for an old friend.
It was, yes, magnificent, and not the less so for its coming to him,
suddenly, as sincere, as nobly exalted. Something in Charlotte's eyes
seemed to tell him this, seemed to plead with him in advance as to
what he was to find in it. He was eager--and he tried to show her that
too--to find what she liked; mindful as he easily could be of what the
friendship had been for Maggie. It had been armed with the wings of
young imagination, young generosity; it had been, he believed--always
counting out her intense devotion to her father--the liveliest emotion
she had known before the dawn of