nd Place--on her leaving her father: since she does,
once in a while, leave him. That was to keep me with her a little
longer. But she kept the carriage and, after tea there, came with me
herself back here. This was also for the same purpose. Then she went
home, though I had brought her a message from the Prince that arranged
their movements otherwise. He and Charlotte must have arrived--if they
have arrived--expecting to drive together to Eaton Square and keep
Maggie on to dinner there. She has everything there, you know--she has
clothes."

The Colonel didn't in fact know, but he gave it his apprehension. "Oh,
you mean a change?"

"Twenty changes, if you like--all sorts of things. She dresses, really,
Maggie does, as much for her father--and she always did--as for her
husband or for herself. She has her room in his house very much as she
had it before she was married--and just as the boy has quite a second
nursery there, in which Mrs. Noble, when she comes with him, makes
herself, I assure you, at home. Si bien that if Charlotte, in her own
house, so to speak, should wish a friend or two to stay with her, she
really would be scarce able to put them up."

It was a picture into which, as a thrifty entertainer himself, Bob
Assingham could more or less enter. "Maggie and the child spread so?"

"Maggie and the child spread so."

Well, he considered. "It IS rather rum,"

"That's all I claim"--she seemed thankful for the word. "I don't say
it's anything more--but it IS, distinctly, rum."

Which, after an instant, the Colonel took up. "'More'? What more COULD
it be?"

"It could be that she's unhappy, and that she takes her funny little
way of consoling herself. For if she were unhappy"--Mrs. Assingham had
figured it out--"that's just the way, I'm convinced, she would take. But
how can she be unhappy, since--as I'm also convinced--she, in the midst
of everything, adores her husband as much as ever?"

The Colonel at this brooded for a little at large. "Then if she's so
happy, please what's the matter?"

It made his wife almost spring at him. "You think then she's secretly
wretched?"

But he threw up his arms in deprecation. "Ah, my dear, I give them up to
YOU. I've nothing more to suggest."

"Then it's not sweet of you." She spoke at present as if he were
frequently sweet. "You admit that it is 'rum.'"

And this indeed fixed again, for a moment, his intention. "Has Charlotte
complained of the want of rooms for h