but it strikes me that
he would like the rest of that matter very much," I returned. "That's
not at all a bad programme even from Archie's point of view."

"It's no use thinking of princes," she pursued as if she hadn't heard
me. "They're most of them more in want of money even than we. Therefore
'greatness' is out of the question--we really recognised that at an
early stage. Your nephew's exactly the sort of young man we've always
built upon--if he wasn't, so impossibly, your nephew. From head to foot
he was made on purpose. Dear Linda was her mother's own daughter when
she recognised him on the spot! One's enough of a prince to-day when
one's the right American: such a wonderful price is set on one's
not being the wrong! It does as well as anything and it's a great
simplification. If you don't believe me go to London and see." She had
come with me out to the road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa and
we stood there in the sweet dark warmth. As I took her hand, bidding
her good-night, I couldn't but exhale a compassion. "Poor Linda, poor
Linda!"

"Oh she'll live to do better," said Mrs. Pallant.

"How can she do better--since you've described all she finds Archie as
perfection?"

She knew quite what she meant. "Ah better for HIM!"

I still had her hand--I still sought her eyes. "How came it you could
throw me over--such a woman as you?"

"Well, my friend, if I hadn't thrown you over how could I do this for
you?" On which, disengaging herself, she turned quickly away.

VI

I don't know how deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of her
question, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and
the real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of the
colour of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa--a walk of half an
hour--in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in which
she had appeared to me produced in me an emotion that would have made
sitting still in a carriage impossible. This same stress kept me up
after I had reached my hotel; as I knew I shouldn't sleep it was useless
to go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony, Archie had
not reappeared when the inn-lights began here and there to be dispensed
with. I felt even slightly anxious for him, wondering at possible
mischances. Then I reflected that in case of an accident on the lake,
that is of his continued absence from Baveno--Mrs. Pallant would already
have dispatched me a messenge