strange, cara mia,” he consentingly enough dropped; but, for whatever strangeness, he kept her, as they circulated, from being waylaid, even remarking to her afresh as he had often done before, on the help rendered, in such situations, by the intrinsic oddity of the London “squash,” a thing of vague, slow, senseless eddies, revolving as in fear of some menace of conversation suspended over it, the drop of which, with some consequent refreshing splash or spatter, yet never took place.  Of course she was strange; this, as they went, Charlotte knew for herself:  how could she be anything else when the situation holding her, and holding him, for that matter, just as much, had so the stamp of it?  She had already accepted her consciousness, as we have already noted, that a crisis, for them all, was in the air; and when such hours were not depressing, which was the form indeed in which she had mainly known them, they were apparently in a high degree exhilarating.

Later on, in a corner to which, at sight of an empty sofa, Mrs. Assingham had, after a single attentive arrest, led her with a certain earnestness, this vision of the critical was much more sharpened than blurred.  Fanny had taken it from her:  yes, she was there with Amerigo alone, Maggie having come with them and then, within ten minutes, changed her mind, repented and departed.  “So you’re staying on together without her?” the elder woman had asked; and it was Charlotte’s answer to this that had determined for them, quite indeed according to the latter’s expectation, the need of some seclusion and her companion’s pounce at the sofa.  They were staying on together alone, and—­oh distinctly!—­it was alone that Maggie had driven away, her father, as usual, not having managed to come. “’As usual’—?” Mrs. Assingham had seemed to wonder; Mr. Verver’s reluctances not having, she in fact quite intimated, hitherto struck her.  Charlotte responded, at any rate, that his indisposition to go out had lately much increased—­even though to-night, as she admitted, he had pleaded his not feeling well.  Maggie had wished to stay with him—­for the Prince and she, dining out, had afterwards called in Portland Place, whence, in the event, they had brought her, Charlotte, on.  Maggie had come but to oblige her father—­she had urged the two others to go without her; then she had yielded, for the time, to Mr. Verver’s persuasion.  But here, when they had, after the long wait in the carriage, fairly got in; here, once up the stairs, with the rooms before them, remorse had ended by seizing her:  she had listened to no other remonstrance, and at present therefore, as Charlotte put it, the two were doubtless making together a little party at home.  But it was all right—­so Charlotte also put it:  there was nothing in the world they liked better than these snatched felicities, little parties, long talks, with “I’ll come to you to-morrow,” and “No, I’ll come to you,” make-believe renewals of their old life.  They were fairly,