登陆注册
5242200000226

第226章 Chapter 2(3)

She could n't have been sure beforehand and really (344) had n't been; but the most immediate result of this speech was his letting her see that he took it for no cheap extravagance either of irony or of oblivion. Nothing in the world of a truth had ever been so sweet to her as his look of trying to be serious enough to make no mistake about it. She troubled him--which had n't been at all her purpose; she mystified him--which she could n't help and comparatively did n't mind; then it came over her that he had after all a simplicity, very considerable, on which she had never dared to presume. It was a discovery--not like the other discovery she had once made, but giving out a freshness; and she recognised again in the light of it the number of the ideas of which he thought her capable. They were all apparently queer for him, but she had at least with the lapse of the months created the perception that there might be something in them; whereby he stared there, beautiful and sombre, at what she was at present providing him with. There was something of his own in his mind to which she was sure he referred everything for a measure and a meaning; he had never let go of it from the evening, weeks before, when, in her room after his encounter with the Bloomsbury cup, she had planted it there by flinging at him, on the question of her father's view of him, her determined "Find out for yourself!" She had been aware, during the months, that he had been trying to find out and had been seeking above all to avoid the appearance of any evasions of such a form of knowledge as might reach him with violence, or with a penetration more insidious, from any other source. Nothing however had reached him; nothing (345) he could at all conveniently reckon with had disengaged itself for him even from the announcement, sufficiently sudden, of the final secession of their companions. Charlotte was in pain, Charlotte was in torment, but he himself had given her reason enough for that; and, in respect to the rest of the whole matter of her obligation to follow her husband, that personage and she, Maggie, had so shuffled away every link between consequence and cause that the intention remained, like some famous poetic line in a dead language, subject to varieties of interpretation. What renewed the obscurity was her strange image of their common offer to him, her father's and her own, of an opportunity to separate from Mrs. Verver with the due amount of form--and all the more that he was in so pathetic a way unable to treat himself to a quarrel with it on the score of taste. Taste in him as a touchstone was now all at sea; for who could say but that one of her fifty ideas, or perhaps forty-nine of them, would n't be exactly that taste by itself, the taste he had always conformed to, had no importance whatever? If meanwhile at all events he felt her as serious, this made the greater reason for her profiting by it as she perhaps might never be able to profit again. She was invoking that reflexion at the very moment he brought out, in reply to her last words, a remark which, though perfectly relevant and perfectly just affected her at first as a high oddity. "They're doing the wisest thing, you know.

For if they were ever to go--! And he looked down at her over his cigar.

If they were ever to go in short it was high time with her father's age, Charlotte's need of initiation, (346) and the general magnitude of the job of their getting settled and seasoned, their learning to "live into" their queer future, it was high time they should take up their courage.

This was eminent sense, but it did n't arrest the Princess, who the next moment had found a form for her challenge. "But shan't you then so much as miss her a little? She's wonderful and beautiful, and I feel somehow as if she were dying. Not really, not physically," Maggie went on--"she's naturally so far, splendid as she is, from having done with life. But dying for us--for you and me; and making us feel it by the very fact of there being so much of her left."

The Prince smoked hard a minute. "As you say, she's splendid, but there is--there always will be--much of her left. Only, as you also say, for others."

"And yet I think," the Princess returned, "that it is n't as if we had wholly done with her. How can we not always think of her? It's as if her unhappiness had been necessary to us--as if we had needed her, at her own cost, to build us up and start us."

He took it in with consideration, but he met it with a lucid enquiry.

"Why do you speak of the unhappiness of your father's wife?"

They exchanged a long look--the time that it took her to find her reply.

"Because not to--!"

"Well, not to--?"

"Would make me have to speak of HIM. And I can't," said Maggie, "speak of him."

"You 'can't'--?"

"I can't." She said it for definite notice, not to (347) be repeated.

"There are too many things," she nevertheless added. "He's too great."

The Prince looked at his cigar-tip, and then as he put back the weed:

"Too great for whom?" Upon which as she hesitated, "Not, my dear, too great for you," he declared. "For me--oh as much as you like."

"Too great for me is what I mean. I know why I think it," Maggie said.

"That's enough."

He looked at her yet again as if she but fanned his wonder; he was on the very point, she judged, of asking her why she thought it. But her own eyes maintained their warning, and at the end of a minute he had uttered other words. "What's of importance is that you're his daughter. That at least we've got. And I suppose that if I may say nothing else I may say at least that I value it."

"Oh yes, you may say that you value it. I myself make the most of it."

This again he took in, letting it presently put forth for him a striking connexion. "She ought to have KNOWN you. That's what's present to me. She ought to have understood you better."

"Better than you did?"

"Yes," he gravely maintained, "better than I did. And she did n't really know you at all. She does n't know you now."

"Ah yes she does!" said Maggie.

同类推荐
  • 申忠愍诗集

    申忠愍诗集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 最胜佛顶陀罗尼净除业障咒经

    最胜佛顶陀罗尼净除业障咒经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 会真集

    会真集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 清代台湾职官印录

    清代台湾职官印录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 太上三五傍救醮五帝断殟仪

    太上三五傍救醮五帝断殟仪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 笑典故事

    笑典故事

    无数事实、经验和理性已经证明:好故事可以影响人的一生。而以我们之见,所谓好故事,在内容上讲述的应是做人与处世的道理,在形式上也应听得进、记得住、讲得出、传得开,而且不会因时代的变迁而失去她的本质特征和艺术光彩。为了让更多的读者走进好故事,阅读好故事,欣赏好故事,珍藏好故事,传播好故事,我们特编选了一套“故事会5元精品系列”以飨之。其选择标准主要有以下三点:一、在《故事会》杂志上发表的作品。二、有过目不忘的艺术感染力。三、有恒久的趣味,对今天的读者仍有启迪作用。愿好故事伴随你的一生!
  • 把心快递给你

    把心快递给你

    她和他的交集,从快递开始。从此,俩人都将心一并快递给了对方,再也无法退货。
  • 女帝恋爱时

    女帝恋爱时

    她本是佛祖手中的一颗佛珠,无奈天魔大战之时跌落尘埃。他本是藐视一切的太极紫薇大帝,却堕入魔道,转入轮回。上一世,他们青梅竹马却相逢太晚。这一世,他们狭路相逢却相爱相杀。她娇纵跋扈嗜血无情,他步步为营深情守候。且看一位狂暴少女如何成长为一代女帝!
  • 父亲讲的故事

    父亲讲的故事

    父亲说,给我泡一杯茶,今儿给你们再说个古今。我们这里的人把讲故事叫说古今。父亲说,这个古今是你三外爷说的。今儿没事干,闲着也是闲着,他就把这个古今给我们讲讲。三外爷当过队里的队长,口才很好,我听过他说杨三姐告状。三外爷去世已经快三十年了。父亲说这事发生的时候,他刚刚来到世上。
  • 这个男友是妖精

    这个男友是妖精

    古有麻雀衔环结草,今有狐狸以身相许。古有海螺姑娘做饭,今有狐狸王子煮面。言雪溪就不明白了,她只不过是发挥充满正义与勇气的母爱光辉救了只萨摩回家,怎么仔细一看竟然是只狐狸?还是只白狐?那她这算不算是捡了个宝贝回来?好吧,这些都是小事,但是白狐居然变成了美男?这就不对了吧!在这个充满科技与智慧的时代,聊斋的故事是根本不可能发生的啊。嗯,美男身材真不错。等等!现在是看这些的时候吗?言雪溪关上浴室门,她可能要换个方式开门。“嫁给我吧,我的身子你已经看过了。”美男这么说。黑人问号脸?喵喵喵喵喵?言雪溪不服了,“开玩笑,要嫁也是你嫁。”论一只腹黑狐狸如何一步一步把智商上线...
  • 天堂候鸟

    天堂候鸟

    当闷骚男遇到豪放女,当青春期撞上要独立,当亲情、友情、爱情交织,是剪断还是理清? 原名《在十八岁路上》,少云新书,青春校园系。。。候鸟群:113212880
  • 让毛泽东流泪的“铁军”之失

    让毛泽东流泪的“铁军”之失

    湘南。道县。潇水西岸。清澈的河水在冬日的阳光下波光粼粼,一群水鸟刚在岸边落下,即刻又惊叫着腾空而起,然后绕着江岸兜了一个大圈子向远方飞去了。鸟儿不敢落脚的地方有人。不是几个人,是灰麻麻的一片人影潜伏在岸边的草丛中。陈树湘坐在一棵古柳下,他的对面是政委程翠林和参谋长王光道,三双眼睛紧盯着铺开的军用地图,谁也不说话,仿佛空气也凝固了一样。许久,还是王光道打破了沉默:“情况摸清楚了,目前尾追而来的是我们的死对头——中央军周浑元部。
  • 女人,决定婚姻的成败

    女人,决定婚姻的成败

    俗语说,幸福的婚姻都是相似的,而不幸的婚姻各有各的不幸。在幸福和谐的婚姻里,有一些共同的法则是有迹可循的,有一些成功经验是值得借鉴的。聪明人和笨人的区别之处在于,前者是善于借鉴和学习的,而后者一定要自己吃亏受挫后才能醒悟。本书要为你提供的正是这样的一些成功法则。借助这些法则,我们可以少走许多弯路,朝着幸福的方向前进。
  • 我的女人你别跑

    我的女人你别跑

    两个相同城市走出来的女孩,两种完全不同的生活方式,两段完全不一样的爱恋。
  • 阅读故事享受快乐丛书:耐人寻味的寓言故事

    阅读故事享受快乐丛书:耐人寻味的寓言故事

    《阅读故事享受快乐丛书:耐人寻味的寓言故事》能够给阅读者带来不一样的快乐体验,并且能使青少年朋友在阅读故事的过程中受到真与美的教育和良好的人文熏陶。