The Golden Bowl - Henry James [84]
Mr Verver’s silence on this could only be a sign that she had caused her story to interest him; though the sign when he spoke was perhaps even sharper. ‘And is it also what you mean by Charlotte’s being “great”?’
‘Well,’ said Maggie, ‘it’s one of her ways. But she has many.’
Again for a little her father considered. ‘And who is it she has tried to marry?’
Maggie, on her side as well, waited as if to bring it out with effect; but she after a minute either renounced or encountered an obstacle. ‘I’m afraid I’m not sure.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘Well, I don’t know’ – and, qualifying again, she was earnestly emphatic. ‘I only make it out for myself.’
‘But you must make it out about some one in particular.’
She had another pause. ‘I don’t think I want even for myself to put names and times, to pull away any veil. I’ve an idea there has been, more than once, somebody I’m not acquainted with – and needn’t be or want to be. In any case it’s all over, and, beyond giving her credit for everything, it’s none of my business.’
Mr Verver deferred, yet he discriminated. ‘I don’t see how you can give credit without knowing the facts.’
‘Can’t I give it – generally – for dignity? Dignity, I mean, in misfortune.’
‘You’ve got to postulate the misfortune first.’
‘Well,’ said Maggie, ‘I can do that. Isn’t it always a misfortune to be – when you’re so fine – so wasted? And yet,’ she went on, ‘not to wail about it, not to look even as if you knew it?’
Mr Verver seemed at first to face this as a large question, and then, after a little, solicited by another view, to let the appeal drop. ‘Well, she mustn’t be wasted. We won’t at least have waste.’
It produced in Maggie’s face another gratitude. ‘Then, dear sir, that’s all I want.’
And it would apparently have settled their question and ended their talk if her father hadn’t, after a little, shown the disposition to revert. ‘How many times are you supposing she has tried?’
Once more, at this, and as if she hadn’t been, couldn’t be, hated to be, in such delicate matters, literal, she was moved to attenuate. ‘Oh I don’t say she absolutely ever tried –!’
He looked perplexed. ‘But if she has so absolutely failed, what then has she done?’
‘She has suffered – she has done that.’ And the Princess added: ‘She has loved – and she has lost.’
Mr Verver, however, still wondered. ‘But how many times?’
Maggie hesitated, but it cleared up. ‘Once is enough. Enough, that is, for one to be kind to her.’
Her father listened, yet not challenging – only as with a need of some basis on which, under these new lights, his bounty could be firm. ‘But has she told you nothing?’
‘Ah thank goodness, no!’
He stared. ‘Then don’t young women tell?’
‘Because, you mean, it’s just what they’re supposed to do?’ She looked at him, flushed again now; with which, after another hesitation, ‘Do young men tell?’ she asked.
He gave a short laugh. ‘How do I know, my dear, what young men do?’
‘Then how do I know, father, what vulgar girls do?’
‘I see – I see,’ he quickly returned.
But she spoke the next moment as if she might, odiously, have been sharp. ‘What happens at least is that where there’s a great deal of pride there’s a great deal of silence. I don’t know, I admit, what I should do if I were lonely and sore – for what sorrow, to speak of, have I ever had in my life? I don’t know even if I’m proud – it seems to me the question has never come up for me.’
‘Oh I guess you’re proud, Mag,’ her father cheerfully interposed. ‘I mean I guess you’re proud enough.’
‘Well then I hope I’m humble enough too. I might at all events, for all I know, be abject under a blow. How can I tell? Do you realise, father, that I’ve never had the least blow?’
He gave her a long quiet look. ‘Who should realise if I don’t?’
‘Well, you’ll realise when I have one!’ she exclaimed with a