“I’ve spoken to him,” said Maggie.

Mrs. Assingham stared.  “Ah, then it isn’t true that you’ve made no sign.”

Maggie had a silence.  “I’ve made no trouble.  I’ve made no scene.  I’ve taken no stand.  I’ve neither reproached nor accused him.  You’ll say there’s a way in all that of being nasty enough.”

“Oh!” dropped from Fanny as if she couldn’t help it.

“But I don’t think—­strangely enough—­that he regards me as nasty.  I think that at bottom—­for that is,” said the Princess, “the strangeness—­he’s sorry for me.  Yes, I think that, deep within, he pities me.”

Her companion wondered.  “For the state you’ve let yourself get into?”

“For not being happy when I’ve so much to make me so.”

“You’ve everything,” said Mrs. Assingham with alacrity.  Yet she remained for an instant embarrassed as to a further advance.  “I don’t understand, however, how, if you’ve done nothing—­”

An impatience from Maggie had checked her.  “I’ve not done absolutely ‘nothing.’”

“But what then—?”

“Well,” she went on after a minute, “he knows what I’ve done.”

It produced on Mrs. Assingham’s part, her whole tone and manner exquisitely aiding, a hush not less prolonged, and the very duration of which inevitably gave it something of the character of an equal recognition.  “And what then has he done?”

Maggie took again a minute.  “He has been splendid.”

“‘Splendid’?  Then what more do you want?”

“Ah, what you see!” said Maggie.  “Not to be afraid.”

It made her guest again hang fire.  “Not to be afraid really to speak?”

“Not to be afraid not to speak.”

Mrs. Assingham considered further.  “You can’t even to Charlotte?” But as, at this, after a look at her, Maggie turned off with a movement of suppressed despair, she checked herself and might have been watching her, for all the difficulty and the pity of it, vaguely moving to the window and the view of the hill street.  It was almost as if she had had to give up, from failure of responsive wit in her friend—­the last failure she had feared—­ the hope of the particular relief she had been working for.  Mrs. Assingham resumed the next instant, however, in the very tone that seemed most to promise her she should have to give up nothing.  “I see, I see; you would have in that case too many things to consider.”  It brought the Princess round again, proving itself thus the note of comprehension she wished most to clutch at.  “Don’t be afraid.”

Maggie took it where she stood—­which she was soon able to signify.  “Thank-you.”

It very properly encouraged her counsellor.  “What your idea imputes is a criminal intrigue carried on, from day to day, amid perfect trust and sympathy, not only under your eyes, but under your father’s.  That’s an idea it’s impossible for me for a. moment to entertain.”