w matter and that she at any rate well knew, 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 some 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 not 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
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'--?" Mrs. Assingham had
seemed to wonder; Mr. Verver's reluctances not having, she in fact quite
intimated, hitherto struck her. Charlotte responded, at any rate, that
his indisposition to go out had lately much increased--even though
to-night, as she admitted, he had pleaded his not feeling well. Maggie
had wished to stay with him--for the Prince and she, dining out, had
afterwards called in Portland Place, whence, in the event, they
had brought her, Charlotte, on. Maggie had come but to oblige her
father--she had urged the two others to go without her; then she had
yielded, for the time, to