XI
"I can't say more," this made his companion reply, "than that something in her face, her voice and her whole manner acted upon me as nothing in her had ever acted before; and just for the reason, above all, that I felt her trying her very best—and her very best, poor duck, is very good—to be quiet and natural. It's when one sees people who always are natural making little pale pathetic blinking efforts for it—then it is that one knows something's the matter. I can't describe my impression—you'd have had it for yourself. And the only thing that ever can be the matter with Maggie is that. By 'that' I mean her beginning to doubt. To doubt, for the first time," Mrs. Assingham wound up, "of her wonderful little judgement of her wonderful little world."
It was impressive, Fanny's vision, and the Colonel, as if himself agitated by it, took another turn of prowling. "To doubt of fidelity—to doubt of friendship! Poor duck indeed! It will go hard with her. But she'll put it all," he concluded, "on Charlotte."
Mrs. Assingham, still darkly contemplative, denied this with a headshake. "She won't 'put' it anywhere. She won't do with it anything any one else would. She'll take it all herself."
"You mean she'll make it out her own fault?"
"Yes—she'll find means somehow to arrive at that."
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