he was to pay with being her own affair.

Straighter than ever, thus, the Princess again felt it all put upon
her, and there was a minute, just a supreme instant, during which
there burned in her a wild wish that her father would only look up. It
throbbed for these seconds as a yearning appeal to him--she would chance
it, that is, if he would but just raise his eyes and catch them, across
the larger space, standing in the outer dark together. Then he might
be affected by the sight, taking them as they were; he might make some
sign--she scarce knew what--that would save her; save her from being
the one, this way, to pay all. He might somehow show a preference--
distinguishing between them; might, out of pity for her, signal to her
that this extremity of her effort for him was more than he asked. That
represented Maggie's one little lapse from consistency--the sole small
deflection in the whole course of her scheme. It had come to nothing the
next minute, for the dear man's eyes had never moved, and Charlotte's
hand, promptly passed into her arm, had already, had very firmly
drawn her on--quite, for that matter, as from some sudden, some equal
perception on her part too of the more ways than one in which their
impression could appeal. They retraced their steps along the rest of the
terrace, turning the corner of the house, and presently came abreast of
the other windows, those of the pompous drawing-room, still lighted and
still empty. Here Charlotte again paused, and it was again as if she
were pointing out what Maggie had observed for herself, the very look
the place had of being vivid in its stillness, of having, with all its
great objects as ordered and balanced as for a formal reception, been
appointed for some high transaction, some real affair of state. In
presence of this opportunity she faced her companion once more; she
traced in her the effect of everything she had already communicated; she
signified, with the same success, that the terrace and the sullen night
would bear too meagre witness to the completion of her idea. Soon enough
then, within the room, under the old lustres of Venice and the eyes of
the several great portraits, more or less contemporary with these, that
awaited on the walls of Fawns their final far migration--soon enough
Maggie found herself staring, and at first all too gaspingly, at the
grand total to which each separate demand Mrs. Verver had hitherto made
upon her, however she had made it