But he shook his head--he knew what he meant. "She not only does n't understand you more than I, she understands you ever so much less. Though even I--!"
(348) "Well, even you?" Maggie pressed as he paused.
"Even I, even I even yet--!" Again he paused and the silence held them.
But Maggie at last broke it. "If Charlotte does n't understand me it's because I've prevented her. I've chosen to deceive her and to lie to her."
The Prince kept his eyes on her. "I know what you've chosen to do. But I've chosen to do the same."
"Yes," said Maggie after an instant--"my choice was made when I had guessed yours. But you mean," she asked, "that she understands YOU?"
"It presents small difficulty!"
"Are you so sure?" Maggie went on.
"Sure enough. But it does n't matter." He waited an instant; then looking up through the fumes of his smoke, "She's stupid," he abruptly opined.
"O-oh!" Maggie protested in a long wail.
It had made him in fact quickly change colour. "What I mean is that she's not, as you pronounce her, unhappy." And he recovered with this all his logic. "Why is she unhappy if she does n't know?"
"Does n't know--?" She tried to make his logic difficult.
"Does n't know that YOU know."
It came from him in such a way that she was conscious instantly of three or four things to answer. But what she said first was: "Do you think that's all it need take?" And before he could reply, "She knows, she knows!" Maggie proclaimed.
"Well then what?"
But she threw back her head, she turned impatiently (349) away from him. "Oh I need n't tell you! She knows enough. Besides," she went on, "she does n't believe us."
It made the Prince stare a little. "Ah she asks too much!" That drew however from his wife another moan of objection, which determined in him a judgement. "She won't let you take her for unhappy."
"Oh I know better than any one else what she won't let me take her for!"
"Very well," said Amerigo, "you'll see."
"I shall see wonders, I know. I've already seen them and am prepared for them." Maggie recalled--she had memories enough. "It's terrible"--her memories prompted her to speak. "I see it's ALWAYS terrible for women."
The Prince looked down in his gravity. "Everything's terrible, cara--in the heart of man. She's making her life," he said. "She'll make it."
His wife turned back upon him; she had wandered to a table, vaguely setting objects straight. "A little by the way then too, while she's about it, she's making ours." At this he raised his eyes, which met her own, and she held him while she delivered herself of something that had been with her these last minutes. "You spoke just now of Charlotte's not having learned from you that I 'know.' Am I to take from you then that you accept and recognise my knowledge?"
He did the enquiry all the honours--visibly weighed its importance and weighed his response. "You think I might have been showing you that a little more handsomely?"
(350) "It is n't a question of any beauty," said Maggie; "it's only a question of the quantity of truth."
"Oh the quantity of truth!" the Prince richly though ambiguously murmured.
"That's a thing by itself, yes. But there are also such things all the same as questions of good faith."
"Of course there are!" the Prince hastened to reply. After which he brought up more slowly: "If ever a man since the beginning of time acted in good faith--!" But he dropped it, offering it simply for that.
For that then when it had had time somewhat to settle like some handful of gold-dust thrown into the air, for that then Maggie showed herself as deeply and strangely taking it. "I see." And she even wished this form to be as complete as she could make it. "I see."
The completeness had clearly after an instant struck him as divine.
"Ah my dear, my dear, my dear--!" It was all he could say.
She was n't talking however at large. "You've kept up for so long a silence--!"