THE GOLDEN BOWL
three by which the wide room, enjoying an advantageous "back," commanded the western sky and caught a glimpse of the evening flush; while Mrs. Assingham, possessed of the bowl and possessed too of this indication of a flaw, approached another for the benefit of the slowly-fading light. Here, thumbing the singular piece, weighing it, turning it over and growing suddenly more conscious, above all, of an irresistible impulse, she presently spoke again. "A crack? Then your whole idea has a crack."
Maggie, by this time at some distance from her, waited a moment. "If you mean by my idea the knowledge that has come to me that—"
But Fanny, with decision, had already taken her up. "There's only one knowledge that concerns us—one fact with which we can have anything to do."
"Which one then?"
"The fact that your husband has never, never, never—!" But the very gravity of this statement, while she raised her eyes to her friend across the room, made her for an instant hang fire.
"Well, never what?"
"Never been half so interested in you as now. But don't you, my dear, really feel it?"
Maggie took her time. "Oh I think what I've told you helps me to feel it. His having to-day given up even his forms; his keeping away from me; his not having come." And she shook her head as against all easy glosses. "It is because of that, you know."
"Well, then if it's because of this—!" And Fanny Assingham, who had been casting about her and whose inspiration decidedly had come, raised
178
