still more directly than that of a moment before, but to this one, as well, he returned no immediate answer.  Noticing only that she had finished her tea, he relieved her of her cup, carried it back to the table, asked her what more she would have; and then, on her “Nothing, thanks,” returned to the fire and restored a displaced log to position by a small but almost too effectual kick.  She had meanwhile got up again, and it was on her feet that she repeated the words she had first frankly spoken.  “What else can we do, what in all the world else?”

He took them up, however, no more than at first.  “Where then have you been?” he asked as from mere interest in her adventure.

“Everywhere I could think of—­except to see people.  I didn’t want people—­I wanted too much to think.  But I’ve been back at intervals—­three times; and then come away again.  My cabman must think me crazy—­it’s very amusing; I shall owe him, when we come to settle, more money than he has ever seen.  I’ve been, my dear,” she went on, “to the British Museum—­which, you know, I always adore.  And I’ve been to the National Gallery, and to a dozen old booksellers’, coming across treasures, and I’ve lunched, on some strange nastiness, at a cookshop in Holborn.  I wanted to go to the Tower, but it was too far—­my old man urged that; and I would have gone to the Zoo if it hadn’t been too wet—­which he also begged me to observe.  But you wouldn’t believe—­I did put in St. Paul’s.  Such days,” she wound up, “are expensive; for, besides the cab, I’ve bought quantities of books.”  She immediately passed, at any rate, to another point:  “I can’t help wondering when you must last have laid eyes on them.”  And then as it had apparently for her companion an effect of abruptness:  “Maggie, I mean, and the child.  For I suppose you know he’s with her.”

“Oh yes, I know he’s with her.  I saw them this morning.”

“And did they then announce their programme?”

“She told me she was taking him, as usual, da nonno.”

“And for the whole day?”

He hesitated, but it was as if his attitude had slowly shifted.

“She didn’t say.  And I didn’t ask.”

“Well,” she went on, “it can’t have been later than half-past ten—­I mean when you saw them.  They had got to Eaton Square before eleven.  You know we don’t formally breakfast, Adam and I; we have tea in our rooms—­at least I have; but luncheon is early, and I saw my husband, this morning, by twelve; he was showing the child a picture-book.  Maggie had been there with them, had left them settled together.  Then she had gone out—­taking the carriage for something he had been intending but that she offered to do instead.”

The Prince appeared to confess, at this, to his interest.

“Taking, you mean, your carriage?”