was over; it added indeed to the effect of her importantly
awaiting the assistance she had summoned, of her showing a deck
cleared, so to speak, for action. Her maid had already left her, and
she presented herself, in the large, clear room, where everything was
admirable, but where nothing was out of place, as, for the first time in
her life rather "bedizened." Was it that she had put on too many things,
overcharged herself with jewels, wore in particular more of them than
usual, and bigger ones, in her hair?--a question her visitor presently
answered by attributing this appearance largely to the bright red spot,
red as some monstrous ruby, that burned in either of her cheeks. These
two items of her aspect had, promptly enough, their own light for
Mrs. Assingham, who made out by it that nothing more pathetic could be
imagined than the refuge and disguise her agitation had instinctively
asked of the arts of dress, multiplied to extravagance, almost to
incoherence. She had had, visibly, her idea--that of not betraying
herself by inattentions into which she had never yet fallen, and she
stood there circled about and furnished forth, as always, in a manner
that testified to her perfect little personal processes. It had ever
been her sign that she was, for all occasions, FOUND ready, without
loose ends or exposed accessories or unremoved superfluities; a
suggestion of the swept and garnished, in her whole splendid, yet
thereby more or less encumbered and embroidered setting, that reflected
her small still passion for order and symmetry, for objects with their
backs to the walls, and spoke even of some probable reference, in her
American blood, to dusting and polishing New England grandmothers. If
her apartment was "princely," in the clearness of the lingering day,
she looked as if she had been carried there prepared, all attired and
decorated, like some holy image in a procession, and left, precisely,
to show what wonder she could work under pressure. Her friend felt--how
could she not?--as the truly pious priest might feel when confronted,
behind the altar, before the festa, with his miraculous Madonna. Such
an occasion would be grave, in general, with all the gravity of what he
might look for. But the gravity to-night would be of the rarest; what he
might look for would depend so on what he could give.

XXXIII

"Something very strange has happened, and I think you ought to know it."

Maggi