s, and I've lunched, on some strange nastiness, at a cookshop
in Holborn. I wanted to go to the Tower, but it was too far--my old
man urged that; and I would have gone to the Zoo if it hadn't been too
wet--which he also begged me to observe. But you wouldn't believe--I
did put in St. Paul's. Such days," she wound up, "are expensive; for,
besides the cab, I've bought quantities of books." She immediately
passed, at any rate, to another point: "I can't help wondering when you
must last have laid eyes on them." And then as it had apparently for her
companion an effect of abruptness: "Maggie, I mean, and the child. For I
suppose you know he's with her."

"Oh yes, I know he's with her. I saw them this morning."

"And did they then announce their programme?"

"She told me she was taking him, as usual, da nonno."

"And for the whole day?"

He hesitated, but it was as if his attitude had slowly shifted.

"She didn't say. And I didn't ask."

"Well," she went on, "it can't have been later than half-past ten--I
mean when you saw them. They had got to Eaton Square before eleven.
You know we don't formally breakfast, Adam and I; we have tea in our
rooms--at least I have; but luncheon is early, and I saw my husband,
this morning, by twelve; he was showing the child a picture-book. Maggie
had been there with them, had left them settled together. Then she had
gone out--taking the carriage for something he had been intending but
that she offered to do instead."

The Prince appeared to confess, at this, to his interest.

"Taking, you mean, YOUR carriage?"

"I don't know which, and it doesn't matter. It's not a question," she
smiled, "of a carriage the more or the less. It's not a question even,
if you come to that, of a cab. It's so beautiful," she said, "that it's
not a question of anything vulgar or horrid." Which she gave him time to
agree about; and though he was silent it was, rather remarkably, as if
he fell in. "I went out--I wanted to. I had my idea. It seemed to me
important. It has BEEN--it IS important. I know as I haven't known
before the way they feel. I couldn't in any other way have made so sure
of it."

"They feel a confidence," the Prince observed.

He had indeed said it for her. "They feel a confidence." And she
proceeded, with lucidity, to the fuller illustration of it; speaking
again of the three different moments that, in the course of her wild
ramble, had witnessed her return--for curiosity, and even r