waste, much more of his own sort than his wife. He could
talk with her about Fanny almost better than he could talk with Fanny
about Charlotte. However, he made at present the best of the latter
necessity, even to the pressing of the question he has been noted as
having last uttered. "If you can't think what to be afraid of, wait till
you can think. Then you'll do it much better. Or otherwise, if that's
waiting too long, find out from HER. Don't try to find out from ME. Ask
her herself."

Mrs. Assingham denied, as we know, that her husband had a play of mind;
so that she could, on her side, treat these remarks only as if they
had been senseless physical gestures or nervous facial movements. She
overlooked them as from habit and kindness; yet there was no one to whom
she talked so persistently of such intimate things. "It's her friendship
with Maggie that's the immense complication. Because THAT," she audibly
mused, "is so natural."

"Then why can't she have come out for it?"

"She came out," Mrs. Assingham continued to meditate, "because she hates
America. There was no place for her there--she didn't fit in. She wasn't
in sympathy--no more were the people she saw. Then it's hideously dear;
she can't, on her means, begin to live there. Not at all as she can, in
a way, here."

"In the way, you mean, of living with US?"

"Of living with anyone. She can't live by visits alone--and she doesn't
want to. She's too good for it even if she could. But she will--she
MUST, sooner or later--stay with THEM. Maggie will want her--Maggie will
make her. Besides, she'll want to herself."

"Then why won't that do," the Colonel asked, "for you to think it's what
she has come for?"

"How will it do, HOW?"--she went on as without hearing him.

"That's what one keeps feeling."

"Why shouldn't it do beautifully?"

"That anything of the past," she brooded, "should come back NOW? How
will it do, how will it do?"

"It will do, I daresay, without your wringing your hands over it. When,
my dear," the Colonel pursued as he smoked, "have you ever seen anything
of yours--anything that you've done--NOT do?"

"Ah, I didn't do this!" It brought her answer straight. "I didn't bring
her back."

"Did you expect her to stay over there all her days to oblige you?"

"Not a bit--for I shouldn't have minded her coming after their
marriage. It's her coming, this way, before." To which she added with
inconsequence: "I'm too sorry for her--of cour