“And what in the world, my dear, did you mean by it?”—­that sound, as at the touch of a spring, rang out as the first effect of Fanny’s speech.  It broke upon the two women’s absorption with a sharpness almost equal to the smash of the crystal, for the door of the room had been opened by the Prince without their taking heed.  He had apparently had time, moreover, to catch the conclusion of Fanny’s act; his eyes attached themselves, through the large space allowing just there, as happened, a free view, to the shining fragments at this lady’s feet.  His question had been addressed to his wife, but he moved his eyes immediately afterwards to those of her visitor, whose own then held them in a manner of which neither party had been capable, doubtless, for mute penetration, since the hour spent by him in Cadogan Place on the eve of his marriage and the afternoon of Charlotte’s reappearance.  Something now again became possible for these communicants, under the intensity of their pressure, something that took up that tale and that might have been a redemption of pledges then exchanged.  This rapid play of suppressed appeal and disguised response lasted indeed long enough for more results than one—­long enough for Mrs. Assingham to measure the feat of quick self-recovery, possibly therefore of recognition still more immediate, accompanying Amerigo’s vision and estimate of the evidence with which she had been—­so admirably, she felt as she looked at him—­inspired to deal.  She looked at him and looked at him—­there were so many things she wanted, on the spot, to say.  But Maggie was looking too—­and was moreover looking at them both; so that these things, for the elder woman, quickly enough reduced themselves to one.  She met his question—­not too late, since, in their silence, it had remained in the air.  Gathering herself to go, leaving the golden bowl split into three pieces on the ground, she simply referred him to his wife.  She should see them later, they would all meet soon again; and meanwhile, as to what Maggie had meant—­she said, in her turn, from the door—­why, Maggie herself was doubtless by this time ready to tell him.

XXXIV

Left with her husband, Maggie, however, for the time, said nothing; she only felt, on the spot, a strong, sharp wish not to see his face again till he should have had a minute to arrange it.  She had seen it enough for her temporary clearness and her next movement—­seen it as it showed during the stare of surprise that followed his entrance.  Then it was that she knew how hugely expert she had been made, for judging it quickly, by that vision of it, indelibly registered for reference, that had flashed a light into her troubled soul the night of his late return from Matcham.  The expression worn by it at that juncture, for however few instants, had given her a sense of its possibilities, one of the most relevant of which might have been playing up for her, before the consummation of Fanny Assingham’s