was almost simultaneous. "Extraordinary!"

"She observes the forms," said Fanny Assingham.

He hesitated. "With the Prince--?"

"FOR the Prince. And with the others," she went on. "With Mr.
Verver--wonderfully. But above all with Maggie. And the forms"--she had
to do even THEM justice--"are two-thirds of conduct. Say he had married
a woman who would have made a hash of them."

But he jerked back. "Ah, my dear, I wouldn't say it for the world!"

"Say," she none the less pursued, "he had married a woman the Prince
would really have cared for."

"You mean then he doesn't care for Charlotte--?" This was still a new
view to jump to, and the Colonel, perceptibly, wished to make sure of
the necessity of the effort. For that, while he stared, his wife allowed
him time; at the end of which she simply said: "No!"

"Then what on earth are they up to?" Still, however, she only looked at
him; so that, standing there before her with his hands in his pockets,
he had time, further, to risk, soothingly, another question. "Are the
'forms' you speak of--that are two-thirds of conduct--what will be
keeping her now, by your hypothesis, from coming home with him till
morning?"

"Yes--absolutely. THEIR forms."

"'Theirs'--?"

"Maggie's and Mr. Verver's--those they IMPOSE on Charlotte and the
Prince. Those," she developed, "that, so perversely, as I say, have
succeeded in setting themselves up as the right ones."

He considered--but only now, at last, really to relapse into woe. "Your
'perversity,' my dear, is exactly what I don't understand. The state
of things existing hasn't grown, like a field of mushrooms, in a night.
Whatever they, all round, may be in for now is at least the consequence
of what they've DONE. Are they mere helpless victims of fate?"

Well, Fanny at last had the courage of it, "Yes--they are. To be so
abjectly innocent--that IS to be victims of fate."

"And Charlotte and the Prince are abjectly innocent--?"

It took her another minute, but she rose to the full height. "Yes.
That is they WERE--as much so in their way as the others. There were
beautiful intentions all round. The Prince's and Charlotte's were
beautiful--of THAT I had my faith. They WERE--I'd go to the stake.
Otherwise," she added, "I should have been a wretch. And I've not been a
wretch. I've only been a double-dyed donkey."

"Ah then," he asked, "what does our muddle make THEM to have been?"

"Well, too much taken up with considering each