第66章 Chapter 5(3)

Timid as it was, and plaintive, he yet could n't close his eyes for it, and when finally, rising on tiptoe, he had looked out, he had recognised in the figure below with a mandolin, all duskily draped in her grace, the raised appealing eyes and the one irresistible voice of the ever-to-be-loved Italy. Sooner or later, that way, one had to listen; it was a hovering haunting ghost, as of a creature to whom one had done a wrong, a dim pathetic shade crying out to be comforted. For this there was obviously but one way--as these were doubtless also many words for the simple fact that so prime a Roman had a fancy for again seeing Rome. They would accordingly--had n't they better?--go for a little; Maggie meanwhile making the too-absurdly artful point with her father, so that he repeated it in his amusement to Charlotte Stant. to whom he (199) was by this time conscious of addressing many remarks, that it was absolutely, when she came to think, the first thing Amerigo had ever asked of her. "She does n't count of course his having asked of her to marry him"--this was Mr. Verver's indulgent criticism; but he found Charlotte, equally touched by the ingenuous Maggie, in easy agreement with him over the question. If the Prince had asked something of his wife every day in the year this would be still no reason why the poor dear man should n't, in a beautiful fit of homesickness, revisit without reproach his native country.

What his father-in-law frankly counselled was that the reasonable, the really too reasonable pair should, while they were about it, take three or four weeks of Paris as well--Paris being always for Mr. Verver in any stress of sympathy a suggestion that rose of itself to the lips. If they would only do that, on their way back or however they preferred it, Charlotte and he would go over to join them there for a small look--though even then, assuredly, as he had it at heart to add, not in the least because they should have found themselves bored at being left together. The fate of this last proposal indeed was that it reeled for the moment under an assault of destructive analysis from Maggie, who--having, as she granted, to choose between being an unnatural daughter or an unnatural mother, and "electing" for the former--wanted to know what would become of the Principino if the house were cleared of every one but the servants. Her question had fairly resounded, but it had afterwards, like many of her questions, dropped still more effectively (200) than it had risen: the highest moral of the matter being, before the couple took their departure, that Mrs. Noble and Dr.

Brady must mount unchallenged guard over the august little crib. If she had n't supremely believed in the majestic value of the nurse, whose experience was in itself the amplest of pillows, just as her attention was a spreading canopy from which precedent and reminiscence dropped as thickly as parted curtains--if she had n't been able to rest in this confidence she would fairly have sent her husband on his journey without her. In the same manner, if the sweetest--for it was so she qualified him--of little country doctors had n't proved to her his wisdom by rendering irresistible, especially on rainy days and in direct proportion to the frequency of his calls, adapted to all weathers, that she should converse with him for hours over causes and consequences, over what he had found to answer with his little five at home, she would have drawn scant support from the presence of a mere grandfather and a mere brilliant friend. These persons, accordingly, her own predominance having thus for the time given way, could carry with a certain ease, and above all with mutual aid, their consciousness of a charge.

So far as their office weighed they could help each other with it--which was in fact to become, as Mrs. Noble herself loomed larger for them, not a little of a relief and a diversion.