THE PRINCESS
prevailingly to exist for her private benefit was the finest flower Maggie had plucked from among the suggestions sown, like abundant seed, on the occasion of the entertainment offered in Portland Place to the Matcham company. Mrs. Assingham had that night, rebounding from dejection, bristled with bravery and sympathy; she had then absolutely, she had perhaps recklessly, for herself, betrayed the deeper and darker consciousness—an impression it would now be late for her inconsistently to attempt to undo. It was with a wonderful air of giving out all these truths that the Princess at present approached her again; making doubtless at first a sufficient scruple of letting her know what in especial she asked of her, yet not a bit ashamed, as she in fact quite expressly declared, of Fanny's discerned foreboding of the strange uses she might perhaps have for her. Quite from the first really Maggie said extraordinary things to her, such as "You can help me, you know, my dear, when nobody else can"; such as "I almost wish, upon my word, that you had something the matter with you, that you had lost your health or your money or your reputation (forgive me, love!) so that I might be with you as much as I want, or keep you with me, without exciting comment, without exciting any other remark than that such kindnesses are 'like' me." We have each our own way of making up for our unselfishness, and Maggie, who had no small self at all as against her husband or her father and only a weak and uncertain one as against her stepmother, would verily at this crisis have seen Mrs. Assingham's personal life or liberty sacrificed without a pang.
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