“To-day?” the Prince inquiringly echoed.

But she was singularly able—­it had been marvellously “given” her, she afterwards said to herself—­to abide, for her light, for her clue, by her own order.

“I inspired him with sympathy—­there you are!  But the miracle is that he should have a sympathy to offer that could be of use to me.  That was really the oddity of my chance,” the Princess proceeded—­“that I should have been moved, in my ignorance, to go precisely to him.”

He saw her so keep her course that it was as if he could, at the best, but stand aside to watch her and let her pass; he only made a vague demonstration that was like an ineffective gesture.  “I’m sorry to say any ill of your friends, and the thing was a long time ago; besides which there was nothing to make me recur to it.  But I remember the man’s striking me as a decided little beast.”

She gave a slow headshake—­as if, no, after consideration, not that way were an issue.  “I can only think of him as kind, for he had nothing to gain.  He had in fact only to lose.  It was what he came to tell me—­that he had asked me too high a price, more than the object was really worth.  There was a particular reason, which he hadn’t mentioned, and which had made him consider and repent.  He wrote for leave to see me again—­wrote in such terms that I saw him here this afternoon.”

“Here?”—­it made the Prince look about him.

“Downstairs—­in the little red room.  While he was waiting he looked at the few photographs that stand about there and recognised two of them.  Though it was so long ago, he remembered the visit made him by the lady and the gentleman, and that gave him his connexion.  It gave me mine, for he remembered everything and told me everything.  You see you too had produced your effect; only, unlike you, he had thought of it again—­he had recurred to it.  He told me of your having wished to make each other presents—­but of that’s not having come off.  The lady was greatly taken with the piece I had bought of him, but you had your reason against receiving it from her, and you had been right.  He would think that of you more than ever now,” Maggie went on; “he would see how wisely you had guessed the flaw and how easily the bowl could be broken.  I had bought it myself, you see, for a present—­he knew I was doing that.  This was what had worked in him—­especially after the price I had paid.”

Her story had dropped an instant; she still brought it out in small waves of energy, each of which spent its force; so that he had an opportunity to speak before this force was renewed.  But the quaint thing was what he now said.  “And what, pray, was the price?”

She paused again a little.  “It was high, certainly—­for those fragments.  I think I feel, as I look at them there, rather ashamed to say.”

The Prince then again looked at them; he might have been growing used to the sight.  “But shall you at least get your money back?”