as well as father's, were to be avoided; the
importance only was that their talk about it led for a moment to
the first words they had as yet exchanged on the subject of Maggie.
Charlotte, still in the Park, proceeded to them--for it was she who
began--with a serenity of appreciation that was odd, certainly, as a
sequel to her words of ten minutes before. This was another note on
her--what he would have called another light--for her companion, who,
though without giving a sign, admired, for what it was, the simplicity
of her transition, a transition that took no trouble either to trace or
to explain itself. She paused again an instant, on the grass, to make
it; she stopped before him with a sudden "Anything of course, dear as
she is, will do for her. I mean if I were to give her a pin-cushion from
the Baker-Street Bazaar."

"That's exactly what _I_ meant"--the Prince laughed out this allusion to
their snatch of talk in Portland Place. "It's just what I suggested."

She took, however, no notice of the reminder; she went on in her own
way. "But it isn't a reason. In that case one would never do anything
for her. I mean," Charlotte explained, "if one took advantage of her
character."

"Of her character?"

"We mustn't take advantage of her character," the girl, again unheeding,
pursued. "One mustn't, if not for HER, at least for one's self. She
saves one such trouble."

She had spoken thoughtfully, with her eyes on her friend's; she might
have been talking, preoccupied and practical, of someone with whom he
was comparatively unconnected. "She certainly GIVES one no trouble,"
said the Prince. And then as if this were perhaps ambiguous or
inadequate: "She's not selfish--God forgive her!--enough."

"That's what I mean," Charlotte instantly said. "She's not selfish
enough. There's nothing, absolutely, that one NEED do for her. She's
so modest," she developed--"she doesn't miss things. I mean if you love
her--or, rather, I should say, if she loves you. She lets it go."

The Prince frowned a little--as a tribute, after all, to seriousness.
"She lets what--?"

"Anything--anything that you might do and that you don't. She lets
everything go but her own disposition to be kind to you. It's of herself
that she asks efforts--so far as she ever HAS to ask them. She hasn't,
much. She does everything herself. And that's terrible."

The Prince had listened; but, always with propriety, he didn't commit
himself. "Terrible?"

"W