ere to be reckoned with.

Fanny stood off from that proposition as visibly to the Princess, and as
consciously to herself, as she might have backed away from the edge of
a chasm into which she feared to slip; a truth that contributed again to
keep before our young woman her own constant danger of advertising her
subtle processes. That Charlotte should have begun to be restrictive
about the Assinghams--which she had never, and for a hundred obviously
good reasons, been before--this in itself was a fact of the highest
value for Maggie, and of a value enhanced by the silence in which
Fanny herself so much too unmistakably dressed it. What gave it quite
thrillingly its price was exactly the circumstance that it thus opposed
her to her stepmother more actively--if she was to back up her friends
for holding out--than she had ever yet been opposed; though of course
with the involved result of the fine chance given Mrs. Verver to ask her
husband for explanations. Ah, from the moment she should be definitely
CAUGHT in opposition there would be naturally no saying how much
Charlotte's opportunities might multiply! What would become of her
father, she hauntedly asked, if his wife, on the one side, should
begin to press him to call his daughter to order, and the force of old
habit--to put it only at that--should dispose him, not less effectively,
to believe in this young person at any price? There she was, all round,
imprisoned in the circle of the reasons it was impossible she should
give--certainly give HIM. The house in the country was his house, and
thereby was Charlotte's; it was her own and Amerigo's only so far as its
proper master and mistress should profusely place it at their disposal.
Maggie felt of course that she saw no limit to her father's profusion,
but this couldn't be even at the best the case with Charlotte's, whom it
would never be decent, when all was said, to reduce to fighting for her
preferences. There were hours, truly, when the Princess saw herself
as not unarmed for battle if battle might only take place without
spectators.

This last advantage for her, was, however, too sadly out of the
question; her sole strength lay in her being able to see that if
Charlotte wouldn't "want" the Assinghams it would be because that
sentiment too would have motives and grounds. She had all the while
command of one way of meeting any objection, any complaint, on his
wife's part, reported to her by her father; it would be