ose. We hate it unspeakably--I'm more ready
to be a coward before it, to let the whole thing, to let everyone,
selfishly and pusillanimously slide, than before any social duty, any
felt human call, that has ever forced me to be decent. I speak at least
for myself. For you," she had added, "as I've given you so perfect an
opportunity to fall in love with Maggie, you'll doubtless find your
account in being so much nearer to her."

"And what do you make," the Colonel could, at this, always imperturbably
enough ask, "of the account you yourself will find in being so much
nearer to the Prince; of your confirmed, if not exasperated, infatuation
with whom--to say nothing of my weak good-nature about it--you give such
a pretty picture?"

To the picture in question she had been always, in fact, able
contemplatively to return. "The difficulty of my enjoyment of that is,
don't you see? that I'm making, in my loyalty to Maggie, a sad hash of
his affection for me."

"You find means to call it then, this whitewashing of his crime, being
'loyal' to Maggie?"

"Oh, about that particular crime there is always much to say. It is
always more interesting to us than any other crime; it has at least
that for it. But of course I call everything I have in mind at all being
loyal to Maggie. Being loyal to her is, more than anything else, helping
her with her father--which is what she most wants and needs."

The Colonel had had it before, but he could apparently never have too
much of it. "Helping her 'with' him--?"

"Helping her against him then. Against what we've already so fully
talked of--its having to be recognised between them that he doubts.
That's where my part is so plain--to see her through, to see her through
to the end." Exaltation, for the moment, always lighted Mrs. Assingham's
reference to this plainness; yet she at the same time seldom failed, the
next instant, to qualify her view of it. "When I talk of my obligation
as clear I mean that it's absolute; for just HOW, from day to day and
through thick and thin, to keep the thing up is, I grant you, another
matter. There's one way, luckily, nevertheless, in which I'm strong. I
can perfectly count on her."

The Colonel seldom failed here, as from the insidious growth of an
excitement, to wonder, to encourage. "Not to see you're lying?"

"To stick to me fast, whatever she sees. If I stick to her--that is
to my own poor struggling way, under providence, of watching over them