The Golden Bowl - Henry James [246]
Their eyes had to meet on it, and to meet long; Maggie’s avoided at least the disgrace of looking away. ‘What makes you want to ask it?’
‘My natural desire to know. You’ve done that for so long little justice.’
Maggie waited a moment. ‘For so long? You mean you’ve thought –?’
‘I mean, my dear, that I’ve seen. I’ve seen, week after week, that you seemed to be thinking – of something that perplexed or worried you. Is it anything for which I’m in any degree responsible?’
Maggie summoned all her powers. ‘What in the world should it be?’
‘Ah that’s not for me to imagine, and I should be very sorry to have to try to say! I’m aware of no point whatever at which I may have failed you,’ said Charlotte; ‘nor of any at which I may have failed any one in whom I can suppose you sufficiently interested to care. If I’ve been guilty of some fault I’ve committed it all unconsciously, and am only anxious to hear from you honestly about it. But if I’ve been mistaken as to what I speak of – the difference, more and more marked, as I’ve thought, in all your manner to me – why obviously so much the better. No form of correction received from you could give me greater satisfaction.’
She spoke, it struck her companion, with rising, with extraordinary ease; as if hearing herself say it all, besides seeing the way it was listened to, helped her from point to point. She saw she was right – that this was the tone for her to take and the thing for her to do, the thing as to which she was probably feeling that she had in advance, in her delays and uncertainties, much exaggerated the difficulty. The difficulty was small, and it grew smaller as her adversary continued to shrink; she was not only doing as she wanted, but had by this time effectively done it and hung it up. All of which but deepened Maggie’s sense of the sharp and simple need now of seeing her through to the end. ‘ “If” you’ve been mistaken, you say?’ – and the Princess but barely faltered. ‘You have been mistaken.’
Charlotte looked at her splendidly hard. ‘You’re perfectly sure it’s all my mistake?’
‘All I can say is that you’ve received a false impression.’
‘Ah then – so much the better! From the moment I had received it I knew I must sooner or later speak of it – for that, you see, is systematically my way. And now,’ Charlotte added, ‘you make me glad I’ve spoken. I thank you very much.’
It was strange how for Maggie too with this the difficulty seemed to sink. Her companion’s acceptance of her denial was like a general pledge not to keep things any worse for her than they essentially had to be; it positively helped her to build up her falsehood – to which accordingly she contributed another block. ‘I’ve affected you evidently – quite accidentally – in some way of which I’ve been all unaware. I’ve not felt at any time that you’ve wronged me.’
‘How could I come within a mile,’ Charlotte enquired, ‘of such a possibility?’
Maggie, with her eyes on her more easily now, made no attempt to say; she said after a little something more to the present point. ‘I accuse you – I accuse you of nothing.’
‘Ah that’s lucky!’
Charlotte had brought this out with the richness almost of gaiety; and Maggie, to go on, had to think with her own intensity of Amerigo – to think how he on his side had had to go through with his lie to her, how it was for his wife he had done so, and how his doing so had given her the clue and set her the example. He must have had his own difficulty about it, and she wasn