The particular appearance she would, as they said, go in for was that of having no account whatever to give himit would be in fact that of having none to give anybodyof reasons or of motives, of comings or of goings. She was a charming young woman who had met him before, but she was also a charming young woman with a life of her own. She would take it highup, up, up, ever so high. Well then, he would do the same; no height would be too great for them, not even the dizziest conceivable to a young person so subtle. The dizziest seemed indeed attained when, after another moment, she came as near as she was to come to an apology for her abruptness.
Ive been thinking of Maggie, and at last I yearned for her. I wanted to see her happyand it doesnt strike me I find you too shy to tell me I SHALL.
Of course shes happy, thank God! Only its almost terrible, you know, the happiness of young, good, generous creatures. It rather frightens one. But the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints, said the Prince, have her in their keeping.
Certainly they have. Shes the dearest of the dear. But I neednt tell you, the girl added.
Ah, he returned with gravity, I feel that Ive still much to learn about her. To which he subjoined Shell rejoice awfully in your being with us.
Oh, you dont need me! Charlotte smiled. Its her hour. Its a great hour. One has seen often enough, with girls, what it is. But that, she said, is exactly why. Why Ive wanted, I mean, not to miss it.
He bent on her a kind, comprehending face. You mustnt miss anything. He had got it, the pitch, and he could keep it now, for all he had needed was to have it given him. The pitch was the happiness of his wife that was to bethe sight of that happiness as a joy for an old friend. It was, yes, magnificent, and not the less so for its coming to him, suddenly, as sincere, as nobly exalted. Something in Charlottes eyes seemed to tell him this, seemed to plead with him in advance as to what he was to find in it. He was eagerand he tried to show her that tooto find what she liked; mindful as he easily could be of what the friendship had been for Maggie. It had been armed with the wings of young imagination, young generosity; it had been, he believedalways counting out her intense devotion to her fatherthe liveliest emotion she had known before the dawn of the sentiment inspired by himself. She had not, to his knowledge, invited the object of it to their wedding, had not thought of proposing to her, for a matter of a couple of hours, an arduous and expensive journey. But she had kept her connected and informed, from week to week, in spite of preparations and absorptions. Oh, Ive been writing to CharlotteI wish you knew her better: he could still hear, from recent weeks, this record of the fact, just as he could still be conscious, not otherwise than queerly, of the gratuitous element in Maggies wish, which he had failed as yet to indicate to her. Older and perhaps more intelligent, at any rate, why shouldnt Charlotte respondand be quite FREE to respondto such fidelities with something more than mere formal good manners? The relations of women with each other were of the strangest, it was true, and he probably wouldnt have trusted here a young person of his own race. He was proceeding throughout on the ground of the immense differencedifficult indeed as it might have been to disembroil in this young person HER race-quality. Nothing in her definitely placed her; she was a rare, a special product. Her singleness, her solitude, her want of means, that is her want of ramifications and other advantages, contributed to enrich her somehow with an odd, precious neutrality, to constitute for her, so detached yet so aware, a sort of small social capital. It was the only one she hadit was the only one a lonely, gregarious girl COULD have, since few, surely, had in anything like the same degree arrived at it, and since this one indeed had compassed it but through the play of some gift of nature to which you could scarce give a definite name.
It wasnt a question of her strange sense for tongues, with which she juggled as a conjuror at a show juggled with balls or hoops or lighted brandsit wasnt at least entirely that, for he had known people almost as polyglot whom their accomplishment had quite failed to make interesting. He was polyglot himself, for that matteras was the case too with so many of his friends and relations; for none of whom, more than for himself, was it anything but a common convenience. The point was that in this young woman it was a beauty in itself, and almost a mystery: so, certainly, he had more than once felt in noting, on her lips, that rarest, among the Barbarians, of all civil graces, a perfect felicity in the use of Italian. He had known strangersa few, and mostly menwho spoke his own language agreeably; but he had known neither man nor woman who showed for it Charlottes almost mystifying instinct. He remembered how, from the first of their acquaintance, she had made no display of it, quite as if English, between them, his English so matching with hers, were their inevitable medium. He had perceived all by accidentby hearing her talk before him to somebody else that they had an alternative as good; an alternative in fact as much better as the amusement for him was greater in watching her for the slips that never came. Her account of the mystery didnt suffice: her recall of her birth in Florence and Florentine childhood; her parents, from the great country, but themselves already of a corrupt generation, demoralised, falsified, polyglot well before her, with the Tuscan balia who was her first remembrance; the servants of the villa, the dear contadini of the poder, the little girls and the other peasants of the next podere, all the rather shabby but still ever so pretty human furniture of her early time, including the good sisters of the poor convent of the Tuscan hills, the convent shabbier than almost anything else, but prettier too, in which she had been kept at school till the subsequent phase, the phase of the much grander institution in Paris at which Maggie was to arrive, terribly frightened, and as a smaller girl, three years before her own ending of her period of five. Such reminiscences, naturally, gave a ground, but they had not prevented him from insisting that some strictly civil ancestorgenerations back, and from the Tuscan hills if she would-made himself felt, ineffaceably, in her blood and in her tone. She knew nothing of the ancestor, but she had taken his theory from him, gracefully enough, as one of the little presents that make friendship flourish. These matters, however, all melted together now, though a sense of them was doubtless concerned, not unnaturally, in the next thing, of the nature of a surmise, that his discretion let him articulate. You havent, I rather gather, particularly liked your country? They would stick, for the time, to their English.
It doesnt, I fear, seem particularly mine. And it doesnt in the least matter, over there, whether one likes it or notthat is to anyone but ones self. But I didnt like it, said Charlotte Stant.
Thats not encouraging then to me, is it? the Prince went on.
Do you mean because youre going?
Oh yes, of course were going. Ive wanted immensely to go. She hesitated. But now?immediately?
In a month or twoit seems to be the new idea. On which there was something in her faceas he imaginedthat made him say: Didnt Maggie write to you?
Not of your going at once. But of course you must go. And of course you must stayCharlotte was easily clearas long as possible.
It doesnt, I fear, seem particularly mine. And it doesnt in the least matter, over there, whether one likes it or notthat is to anyone but ones self. But I didnt like it, said Charlotte Stant.
Thats not encouraging then to me, is it? the Prince went on.
Do you mean because youre going?
Oh yes, of course were going. Ive wanted immensely to go. She hesitated. But now?immediately?
In a month or twoit seems to be the new idea. On which there was something in her faceas he imaginedthat made him say: Didnt Maggie write to you?
Not of your going at once. But of course you must go. And of course you must stayCharlotte was easily clearas long as possible.
Is that what you did? he laughed. You stayed as long as possible?
Well, it seemed to me sobut I hadnt interests. Youll have themon a great scale. Its the country for interests, said Charlotte. If I had only had a few I doubtless wouldnt have left it.
He waited an instant; they were still on their feet. Yours then are rather here?
Oh, mine!the girl smiled. They take up little room, wherever they are.
It determined in him, the way this came from her and what it somehow did for her-it determined in him a speech that would have seemed a few minutes before precarious and in questionable taste. The lead she had given him made the difference, and he felt it as really a lift on finding an honest and natural word rise, by its license, to his lips. Nothing surely could be, for both of them, more in the note of a high bravery. Ive been thinking it all the while so probable, you know, that you would have seen your way to marrying.
She looked at him an instant, and, just for these seconds, he feared for what he might have spoiled. To marrying whom?
Why, some good, kind, clever, rich American.
Again his security hung in the balancethen she was, as he felt, admirable.
I tried everyone I came across. I did my best. I showed I had come, quite publicly, FOR that. Perhaps I showed it too much. At any rate it was no use. I had to recognise it. No one would have me. Then she seemed to show as sorry for his having to hear of her anything so disconcerting. She pitied his feeling about it; if he was disappointed she would cheer him up. Existence, you know, all the same, doesnt depend on that. I mean, she smiled, on having caught a husband.
Ohexistence! the Prince vaguely commented. You think I ought to argue for more than mere existence? she asked. I dont see why MY existenceeven reduced as much as you like to being merely mineshould be so impossible. There are things, of sorts, I should be able to havethings I should be able to be. The position of a single woman to-day is very favourable, you know.
Favourable to what?
Why, just TO existencewhich may contain, after all, in one way and another, so much. It may contain, at the worst, even affections; affections in fact quite particularly; fixed, that is, on ones friends. Im extremely fond of Maggie, for instanceI quite adore her. How could I adore her more if I were married to one of the people you speak of?
The Prince gave a laugh. You might adore HIM more!
Ah, but it isnt, is it? she asked, a question of that.
My dear friend, he returned, its always a question of doing the best for ones self one canwithout injury to others. He felt by this time that they were indeed on an excellent basis; so he went on again, as if to show frankly his sense of its firmness. I venture therefore to repeat my hope that youll marry some capital fellow; and also to repeat my belief that such a marriage will be more favourable to you, as you call it, than even the spirit of the age.
She looked at him at first only for answer, and would have appeared to take it with meekness had she not perhaps appeared a little more to take it with gaiety. Thank you very much, she simply said; but at that moment their friend was with them again. It was undeniable that, as she came in, Mrs. Assingham looked, with a certain smiling sharpness, from one of them to the other; the perception of which was perhaps what led Charlotte, for reassurance, to pass the question on. The Prince hopes so much I shall still marry some good person.
Whether it worked for Mrs. Assingham or not, the Prince was himself, at this, more than ever reassured. He was SAFE, in a wordthat was what it all meant; and he had required to be safe. He was really safe enough for almost any joke. Its only, he explained to their hostess, because of what Miss Stant has been telling me. Dont we want to keep up her courage? If the joke was broad he had at least not begun itnot, that is, AS a joke; which was what his companions address to their friend made of it. She has been trying in America, she says, but hasnt brought it off.
The tone was somehow not what Mrs. Assingham had expected, but she made the best of it. Well then, she replied to the young man, if you take such an interest you must bring it off.
And you must help, dear, Charlotte said unperturbedas youve helped, so beautifully, in such things before. With which, before Mrs. Assingham could meet the appeal, she had addressed herself to the Prince on a matter much nearer to him. YOUR marriage is on Friday?on Saturday?
Oh, on Friday, no! For what do you take us? Theres not a vulgar omen were neglecting. On Saturday, please, at the Oratory, at three oclockbefore twelve assistants exactly.
Twelve including ME?
It struck himhe laughed. Youll make the thirteenth. It wont do!
Not, said Charlotte, if youre going in for omens. Should you like me to stay away?
Dear nowell manage. Well make the round numberwell have in some old woman. They must keep them there for that, dont they?
Mrs. Assinghams return had at last indicated for him his departure; he had possessed himself again of his hat and approached her to take leave. But he had another word for Charlotte. I dine to-night with Mr. Verver. Have you any message?
The girl seemed to wonder a little. For Mr. Verver?
For Maggieabout her seeing you early. That, I know, is what shell like.
Then Ill come earlythanks.
I daresay, he went on, shell send for you. I mean send a carriage.
Oh, I dont require that, thanks. I can go, for a penny, cant I? she asked of Mrs. Assingham, in an omnibus.
Oh, I say! said the Prince while Mrs. Assingham looked at her blandly.
Yes, loveand Ill give you the penny. She shall get there, the good lady added to their friend.
But Charlotte, as the latter took leave of her, thought of something else. Theres a great favour, Prince, that I want to ask of you. I want, between this and Saturday, to make Maggie a marriage-present.
Oh, I say! the young man again soothingly exclaimed.
Ah, but I MUST, she went on. Its really almost for that I came back. It was impossible to get in America what I wanted.