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By Root 6972 0

difference between the move to Fawns because each of them now knew the others wanted it and the pairing-off, for a journey, of her husband and her father, which nobody knew that either wanted. ‘More company’ at Fawns would be effectually enough the key in which her husband and her stepmother were at work; there was truly no question but that she and her father must accept any array of visitors. No one could try to marry him now. What he had just said was a direct plea for that, and what was the plea itself but an act of submission to Charlotte? He had, from his chair, been noting her look, but he had the next minute also risen, and then it was they had reminded each other of their having come out for the boy. Their junction with him and with his companion successfully effected, the four had moved home more slowly and still more vaguely; yet with a vagueness that permitted of Maggie’s reverting an instant to the larger issue. ‘If we have people in the country then, as you were saying, do you know for whom my first fancy would be? You may be amused, but it would be for the Castledeans.’

‘I see. But why should I be amused?’

‘Well, I mean I am myself. I don’t think I like her – and yet I like to see her: which, as Amerigo says, is “rum”.’

‘But don’t you feel she’s very handsome?’ her father enquired.

‘Yes, but it isn’t for that.’

‘Then what is it for?’

‘Simply that she may be there – just there before us. It’s as if she may have a value – as if something may come of her. I don’t in the least know what, and she rather irritates me meanwhile. I don’t even know, I admit, why – but if we see her often enough I may find out.’

‘Does it matter so very much?’ her companion had asked while they moved together.

She had hesitated. ‘You mean because you do rather like her?’

He on his side too had waited a little, but then he had taken it from her. ‘Yes, I guess I do rather like her.’

Which she accepted for the first case she could recall of their not being affected by a person in the same way. It came back therefore to his pretending; but she had gone far enough, and to add to her appearance of levity she further observed that though they were so far from a novelty she should also immediately desire at Fawns the presence of the Assinghams. That put everything on a basis independent of explanations; yet it was extraordinary at the same time how much, once in the country again with the others, she was going, as they used to say at home, to need the presence of the good Fanny. It was the strangest thing in the world, but it was as if Mrs Assingham might in a manner mitigate the intensity of her consciousness of Charlotte. It was as if the two would balance, one against the other; as if it came round again in that fashion to her idea of the equilibrium. It would be like putting this friend into her scale to make weight – into the scale with her father and herself. Amerigo and Charlotte would be in the other; therefore it would take the three of them to keep that one straight. And as this played all duskily in her mind it had received from her father, with a sound of suddenness, a luminous contribution. ‘Ah rather! Do let’s have the Assinghams.’

‘It would be to have them,’ she had said, ‘as we used so much to have them. For a good long stay in the old way and on the old terms: “as regular boarders” Fanny used to call it. That is if they’ll come.’

‘As regular boarders on the old terms – that’s what I should like too. But I guess they’ll come,’ her companion had added in a tone into which she had read meanings. The main meaning was that he felt he was going to require them quite as much as she was. His recognition of the new terms as different from the old, what was that practically but a confession that something had happened, and a perception that, interested in the situation she had helped to create, Mrs Assingham would be by so much as this concerned in its inevitable development? It amounted to an intimation, off his guard, that he should be thankful for some one to turn to. If she had wished covertly to sound him he had now in