Then when this had come to an end: "And do you believe in
Charlotte yet?"

Mrs. Assingham had a demur that she felt she could now afford. "We'll
talk of Charlotte some other day. They both, at any rate, thought
themselves safe at the time."

"Then why did they keep from me everything I might have known?"

Her friend bent upon her the mildest eyes. "Why did I myself keep it
from you?"

"Oh, you weren't, for honour, obliged."

"Dearest Maggie," the poor woman broke out on this, "you ARE divine!"

"They pretended to love me," the Princess went on. "And they pretended
to love HIM."

"And pray what was there that I didn't pretend?"

"Not, at any rate, to care for me as you cared for Amerigo and for
Charlotte. They were much more interesting--it was perfectly natural.
How couldn't you like Amerigo?" Maggie continued.

Mrs. Assingham gave it up. "How couldn't I, how couldn't I?" Then, with
a fine freedom, she went all her way. "How CAN'T I, how can't I?"

It fixed afresh Maggie's wide eyes on her. "I see--I see. Well, it's
beautiful for you to be able to. And of course," she added, "you wanted
to help Charlotte."

"Yes"--Fanny considered it--"I wanted to help Charlotte. But I wanted
also, you see, to help you--by not digging up a past that I believed,
with so much on top of it, solidly buried. I wanted, as I still want,"
she richly declared, "to help every one."

It set Maggie once more in movement--movement which, however, spent
itself again with a quick emphasis. "Then it's a good deal my fault--if
everything really began so well?"

Fanny Assingham met it as she could. "You've been only too perfect.
You've thought only too much."

But the Princess had already caught at the words. "Yes--I've thought
only too much!" Yet she appeared to continue, for the minute, full of
that fault. She had it in fact, by this prompted thought, all before
her. "Of him, dear man, of HIM--!"

Her friend, able to take in thus directly her vision of her father,
watched her with a new suspense. THAT way might safety lie--it was like
a wider chink of light. "He believed--with a beauty!--in Charlotte."

"Yes, and it was I who had made him believe. I didn't mean to, at the
time, so much; for I had no idea then of what was coming. But I did it,
I did it!" the Princess declared.

"With a beauty--ah, with a beauty, you too!" Mrs. Assingham insisted.

Maggie, however, was seeing for herself--it was another matter, "The
thing was that