第81章 Chapter 1(2)

It was as if in separation, even the shortest, she half-forgot or disbelieved how he affected her sight, so that reappearance had in him each time a virtue of its own--a kind of disproportionate intensity suggesting his connexion with occult sources of renewal. What did he do when he was away from her that made him always come back only looking, as she would have called it, "more so"? Superior to any shade of cabotinage, he yet almost resembled an actor who, between his moments on the stage, revisits his dressing-room, and, before the glass, pressed by his need of effect, retouches his make-up. The Prince was at present for instance, though he had quitted her but ten minutes before, still more than then the person it pleased her to be left with--a truth that had all its force for her while he made her his care for their conspicuous return together to the upper rooms.

Conspicuous beyond any wish they could entertain (249) was what, poor wonderful man, he could n't help making it; and when she raised her eyes again, on the ascent, to Bob Assingham, still aloft in his gallery and still looking down at her, she was aware that, in spite of hovering and warning inward voices, she even enjoyed the testimony rendered by his lonely vigil to the lustre she reflected.

He was always lonely at great parties, the dear Colonel--it was n't in such places that the seed he sowed at home was ever reaped by him; but nobody could have seemed to mind it less, to brave it with more bronzed indifference; so markedly that he moved about less like one of the guests than like some quite presentable person in charge of the police arrangements or the electric light. To Mrs. Verver, as will be seen, he represented, with the perfect good faith of his apparent blankness, something definite enough; though her bravery was not thereby too blighted for her to feel herself calling him to witness that the only witchcraft her companion had used, within the few minutes, was that of attending Maggie, who had withdrawn from the scene, to her carriage. Notified at all events of Fanny's probable presence, Charlotte was for a while after this divided between the sense of it as a fact somehow to reckon with and deal with, which was a perception that made in its degree for the prudence, the pusillanimity of postponement, of avoidance--and a quite other feeling, an impatience that presently ended by prevailing, an eagerness, really, to BE suspected, sounded, veritably arraigned, if only that she might have the bad moment over, if only that she might prove to herself, let alone (250) to Mrs. Assingham also, that she could convert it to good; if only in short to be "square," as they said, with her question. For herself indeed particularly it was n't a question; but something in her bones told her that Fanny would treat it as one, and there was truly nothing that from this friend she was n't bound in decency to take. She might hand things back with every tender precaution, with acknowledgements and assurances, but she owed it to them in any case, and owed it to all Mrs. Assingham had done for her, not to get rid of them without having well unwrapped them and turned them over.

To-night, as happened--and she recognised it more and more, with the ebbing minutes, as an influence of everything about her--to-night exactly she would, no doubt, since she knew why, be as firm as she might at any near moment again hope to be for going through that process with the right temper and tone. She said after a little to the Prince "Stay with me; let no one take you; for I want her, yes, I do want her, to see us together, and the sooner the better"--said it to keep her hand on him through constant diversions, and made him in fact by saying it profess a momentary vagueness.

She had to explain to him that it was Fanny Assingham she wanted to see--who clearly would be there, since the Colonel never either stirred without her or, once arrived, concerned himself for her fate; and she had further, after Amerigo had met her with "See us together? why in the world? has n't she often seen us together?" to inform him that what had elsewhere and otherwise happened did n't now matter and that she at any rate well knew (251) for the occasion what she was about. "You're strange, cara mia," he consentingly enough dropped; but, for whatever strangeness, he kept her, as they circulated, from being waylaid, even remarking to her afresh, as he had often done before, on the help rendered in such situations by the intrinsic oddity of the London "squash," a thing of vague slow senseless eddies, revolving as in fear of some menace of conversation suspended over it, the drop of which, with a consequent refreshing splash or spatter, yet never took place. Of course she was strange; this, as they went, Charlotte knew for herself: how could she be anything else when the situation holding her, and holding HIM, for that matter, just as much, had so the stamp of it? She had already accepted her consciousness, as we have already noted, that a crisis for them all was in the air; and when such hours were n't depressing, which was the form indeed in which she had mainly known them, they were apparently in a high degree exhilarating.

Later on, in a corner to which, at sight of an empty sofa, Mrs. Assingham had, after a single attentive arrest, led her with a certain earnestness, this vision of the critical was much more sharpened than blurred. Fanny had taken it from her: yes, she was there with Amerigo alone, Maggie having come with them and then, within ten minutes, changed her mind, repented and departed. "So you're staying on together without her?" the elder woman had asked; and it was Charlotte's answer to this that had determined for them, quite indeed according to the latter's expectation, the need of some seclusion and her companion's (252) pounce at the sofa. They were staying on together alone, and--oh distinctly!--it was alone that Maggie had driven away, her father, as usual, not having managed to come. "'As usual'--?"