oint, he was scarce the man to brook his
wife's being thought to be; so that there hovered before their friend
the possibility of some subsequent scene between them, in the carriage
or at home, of slightly sarcastic inquiry, of promptly invited
explanation; a scene that, according as Maggie should play her part
in it, might or might not precipitate developments. What made these
appearances practically thrilling, meanwhile, was this mystery--a
mystery, it was clear, to Amerigo himself--of the incident or the
influence that had so peculiarly determined them.

The lady of Cadogan Place was to read deeper, however, within
three days, and the page was turned for her on the eve of her young
confidant's leaving London. The awaited migration to Fawns was to take
place on the morrow, and it was known meanwhile to Mrs. Assingham that
their party of four were to dine that night, at the American Embassy,
with another and a larger party; so that the elder woman had a sense
of surprise on receiving from the younger, under date of six o'clock,
a telegram requesting her immediate attendance. "Please come to me
at once; dress early, if necessary, so that we shall have time: the
carriage, ordered for us, will take you back first." Mrs. Assingham, on
quick deliberation, dressed, though not perhaps with full lucidity, and
by seven o'clock was in Portland Place, where her friend, "upstairs"
and described to her on her arrival as herself engaged in dressing,
instantly received her. She knew on the spot, poor Fanny, as she was
afterwards to declare to the Colonel, that her feared crisis had popped
up as at the touch of a spring, that her impossible hour was before her.
Her impossible hour was the hour of its coming out that she had known
of old so much more than she had ever said; and she had often put it to
herself, in apprehension, she tried to think even in preparation, that
she should recognise the approach of her doom by a consciousness akin to
that of the blowing open of a window on some night of the highest wind
and the lowest thermometer. It would be all in vain to have crouched so
long by the fire; the glass would have been smashed, the icy air would
fill the place. If the air in Maggie's room then, on her going up, was
not, as yet, quite the polar blast she had expected, it was distinctly,
none the less, such an atmosphere as they had not hitherto breathed
together. The Princess, she perceived, was completely dressed--that
business