it might be held over her that if she didn't, of her own prudence,
satisfy Charlotte as to the reference, in her mocking spirit, of so much
of the unuttered and unutterable, of the constantly and unmistakably
implied, her father would be invited without further ceremony to
recommend her to do so. But ANY confidence, ANY latent operating
insolence, that Mrs. Verver should, thanks to her large native
resources, continue to be possessed of and to hold in reserve, glimmered
suddenly as a possible working light and seemed to offer, for meeting
her, a new basis and something like a new system. Maggie felt, truly, a
rare contraction of the heart on making out, the next instant, what the
new system would probably have to be--and she had practically done that
before perceiving that the thing she feared had already taken place.
Charlotte, extending her search, appeared now to define herself vaguely
in the distance; of this, after an instant, the Princess was sure,
though the darkness was thick, for the projected clearness of the
smoking-room windows had presently contributed its help. Her friend came
slowly into that circle--having also, for herself, by this time, not
indistinguishably discovered that Maggie was on the terrace. Maggie,
from the end, saw her stop before one of the windows to look at the
group within, and then saw her come nearer and pause again, still with a
considerable length of the place between them.

Yes, Charlotte had seen she was watching her from afar, and had stopped
now to put her further attention to the test. Her face was fixed on her,
through the night; she was the creature who had escaped by force from
her cage, yet there was in her whole motion assuredly, even as so dimly
discerned, a kind of portentous intelligent stillness. She had escaped
with an intention, but with an intention the more definite that it
could so accord with quiet measures. The two women, at all events, only
hovered there, for these first minutes, face to face over their interval
and exchanging no sign; the intensity of their mutual look might have
pierced the night, and Maggie was at last to start with the scared sense
of having thus yielded to doubt, to dread, to hesitation, for a time
that, with no other proof needed, would have completely given her away.
How long had she stood staring?--a single minute or five? Long enough,
in any case, to have felt herself absolutely take from her visitor
something that the latter threw upon