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By Root 17396 0

’s knowledge; the Prince in especial wondered at his friend’s possession of her London. He had rather prized his own possession, the guidance he could really often give a cabman; it was a whim of his own, a part of his Anglomania and congruous with that feature, which had after all so much more surface than depth. When his companion, with the memory of other visits and other rambles, spoke of places he hadn’t seen and things he didn’t know, he actually felt again – as half the effect – just a shade humiliated. He might even have felt a trifle annoyed – if it hadn’t been, on this spot, for his being even more interested. It was a fresh light on Charlotte and on her curious world-quality, of which in Rome he had had his due sense, but which clearly would show larger on the big London stage. Rome was in comparison a village, a family-party, a little old-world spinnet for the fingers of one hand. By the time they reached the Marble Arch it was almost as if she were showing him a new side, and that in fact gave amusement a new and a firmer basis. The right tone would be easy for putting himself in her hands. Should they disagree a little – frankly and fairly – about directions and chances, values and authenticities, the situation would be quite gloriously saved. They were none the less, as happened, much of one mind on the article of their keeping clear of resorts with which Maggie would be acquainted. Charlotte recalled it as a matter of course, named it in time as a condition – they would keep away from any place to which he had already been with Maggie.

This made indeed a scant difference, for though he had during the last month done few things so much as attend his future wife on her making of purchases, the antiquarii,2 as he called them with Charlotte, hadn’t been the great affair. Except in Bond Street, really, Maggie had had no use for them: her situation indeed in connexion with that order of traffic was full of consequences produced by her father’s. Mr Verver, one of the great collectors of the world, hadn’t left his daughter to prowl for herself; he had little to do with shops and was mostly, as a purchaser, approached privately and from afar. Great people, all over Europe, sought introductions to him; high personages, incredibly high, and more of them than would ever be known, solemnly sworn as every one was, in such cases, to discretion, high personages made up to him as the one man on the short authentic list likely to give the price. It had therefore been easy to settle, as they walked, that the tracks of the Ververs, daughter’s as well as father’s, were to be avoided; the importance only was that their talk about it led for a moment to the first words they had as yet exchanged on the subject of Maggie. Charlotte, still in the Park, proceeded to them – for it was she who began – with a serenity of appreciation that was odd, certainly, as a sequel to her words of ten minutes before. This was another note on her – what he would have called another light – to her companion, who, though without giving a sign, admired, for what it was, the simplicity of her transition, a transition that took no trouble either to trace or to explain itself. She paused again an instant on the grass to make it; she stopped before him with a sudden ‘Anything of course, dear as she is, will do for her. I mean if I were to give her a pin-cushion from the Baker-Street Bazaar.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean’ – the Prince laughed out this allusion to their snatch of talk in Portland Place. ‘It’s just what I suggested.’

She took, however, no notice of the reminder; she went on in her own way. ‘But it isn’t a reason. In that case one would never do anything for her. I mean,’ Charlotte explained, ‘if one took advantage of her character.’

‘Of her character?’

‘We mustn’t take advantage of her character,’ the girl, again unheeding, pursued. ‘One mustn’t, if not for her, at least for one’s self. She saves one such trouble.’

She had spoken thoughtfully, her eyes on her friend’s; she might have been talking, preoccupied and practical, of some one with whom he was comparatively unconnected.