age of wifehood and
motherhood. If the Roman matron had been, in sufficiency, first and
last, the honour of that line, Maggie would no doubt, at fifty, have
expanded, have solidified to some such dignity, even should she suggest
a little but a Cornelia in miniature. A light, however, broke for him in
season, and when once it had done so it made him more than ever aware
of Mrs. Verver's vaguely, yet quite exquisitely, contingent
participation--a mere hinted or tendered discretion; in short of Mrs.
Verver's indescribable, unfathomable relation to the scene. Her placed
condition, her natural seat and neighbourhood, her intenser presence,
her quieter smile, her fewer jewels, were inevitably all as nothing
compared with the preoccupation that burned in Maggie like a small flame
and that had in fact kindled in each of her cheeks a little attesting,
but fortunately by no means unbecoming, spot. The party was her father's
party, and its greater or smaller success was a question having for her
all the importance of his importance; so that sympathy created for her
a sort of visible suspense, under pressure of which she bristled with
filial reference, with little filial recalls of expression, movement,
tone. It was all unmistakable, and as pretty as possible, if one would,
and even as funny; but it put the pair so together, as undivided by the
marriage of each, that the Princess il n'y avait pas a dire--might sit
where she liked: she would still, always, in that house, be irremediably
Maggie Verver. The Prince found himself on this occasion so beset with
that perception that its natural complement for him would really have
been to wonder if Mr. Verver had produced on people something of the
same impression in the recorded cases of his having dined with his
daughter.

This backward speculation, had it begun to play, however, would have
been easily arrested; for it was at present to come over Amerigo as
never before that his remarkable father-in-law was the man in the world
least equipped with different appearances for different hours. He was
simple, he was a revelation of simplicity, and that was the end of him
so far as he consisted of an appearance at all--a question that might
verily, for a weakness in it, have been argued. It amused our young man,
who was taking his pleasure to-night, it will be seen, in sundry occult
ways, it amused him to feel how everything else the master of the
house consisted of, resources, possessions, f