ainst
receiving it from her, and you had been right. He would think that of
you more than ever now," Maggie went on; "he would see how wisely you
had guessed the flaw and how easily the bowl could be broken. I had
bought it myself, you see, for a present--he knew I was doing that. This
was what had worked in him--especially after the price I had paid."

Her story had dropped an instant; she still brought it out in small
waves of energy, each of which spent its force; so that he had an
opportunity to speak before this force was renewed. But the quaint thing
was what he now said. "And what, pray, WAS the price?"

She paused again a little. "It was high, certainly--for those fragments.
I think I feel, as I look at them there, rather ashamed to say."

The Prince then again looked at them; he might have been growing used to
the sight. "But shall you at least get your money back?"

"Oh, I'm far from wanting it back--I feel so that I'm getting its
worth." With which, before he could reply, she had a quick transition.
"The great fact about the day we're talking of seems to me to have been,
quite remarkably, that no present was then made me. If your undertaking
had been for that, that was not at least what came of it."

"You received then nothing at all?" The Prince looked vague and grave,
almost retrospectively concerned.

"Nothing but an apology for empty hands and empty pockets; which was
made me--as if it mattered a mite!--ever so frankly, ever so beautifully
and touchingly."

This Amerigo heard with interest, yet not with confusion. "Ah, of course
you couldn't have minded!" Distinctly, as she went on, he was getting
the better of the mere awkwardness of his arrest; quite as if making out
that he need SUFFER arrest from her now--before they should go forth
to show themselves in the world together--in no greater quantity than
an occasion ill-chosen at the best for a scene might decently make room
for. He looked at his watch; their engagement, all the while, remained
before him. "But I don't make out, you see, what case against me you
rest--"

"On everything I'm telling you? Why, the whole case--the case of your
having for so long so successfully deceived me. The idea of your finding
something for me--charming as that would have been--was what had least
to do with your taking a morning together at that moment. What had
really to do with it," said Maggie, "was that you had to: you couldn't
not, from the moment you were