r, no secret of the shock, for herself, so suddenly and
violently received. She had done her best, even while taking it full
in the face, not to give herself away; but she wouldn't answer--no, she
wouldn't--for what she might, in her agitation, have made her informant
think. He might think what he would--there had been three or four
minutes during which, while she asked him question upon question, she
had doubtless too little cared. And he had spoken, for his remembrance,
as fully as she could have wished; he had spoken, oh, delightedly, for
the "terms" on which his other visitors had appeared to be with each
other, and in fact for that conviction of the nature and degree of their
intimacy under which, in spite of precautions, they hadn't been able to
help leaving him. He had observed and judged and not forgotten; he had
been sure they were great people, but no, ah no, distinctly, hadn't
"liked" them as he liked the Signora Principessa. Certainly--she had
created no vagueness about that--he had been in possession of her name
and address, for sending her both her cup and her account. But the
others he had only, always, wondered about--he had been sure they would
never come back. And as to the time of their visit, he could place it,
positively, to a day--by reason of a transaction of importance, recorded
in his books, that had occurred but a few hours later. He had left her,
in short, definitely rejoicing that he had been able to make up to
her for not having been quite "square" over their little business by
rendering her, so unexpectedly, the service of this information. His
joy, moreover, was--as much as Amerigo would!--a matter of the personal
interest with which her kindness, gentleness, grace, her charming
presence and easy humanity and familiarity, had inspired him. All of
which, while, in thought, Maggie went over it again and again--oh, over
any imputable rashness of her own immediate passion and pain, as well
as over the rest of the straight little story she had, after all, to
tell--might very conceivably make a long sum for the Prince to puzzle
out.

There were meanwhile, after the Castledeans and those invited to meet
them had gone, and before Mrs. Rance and the Lutches had come, three or
four days during which she was to learn the full extent of her need not
to be penetrable; and then it was indeed that she felt all the force,
and threw herself upon all the help, of the truth she had confided,
several nights e