It was not in the least, moreover, that there was doubt of him, for he was conspicuously addicted to the manipulation of the child, in the frank Italian way, at such moments as he judged discreet in respect to other claims: conspicuously, indeed, that is, for Maggie, who had more occasion, on the whole, to speak to her husband of the extravagance of her father than to speak to her father of the extravagance of her husband.

Adam Verver had, all round, in this connection, his own serenity.

He was sure of his son-in-law's auxiliary admiration--admiration, he meant, of his grand-son; since, to begin with, what else had been at work but the instinct--or it might fairly have been the tradition--of the latter's making the child so solidly beautiful as to HAVE to be admired?
What contributed most to harmony in this play of relations, however, was the way the young man seemed to leave it to be gathered that, tradition for tradition, the grandpapa's own was not, in any estimate, to go for nothing.

A tradition, or whatever it was, that had flowered prelusively in the Princess herself--well, Amerigo's very discretions were his way of taking account of it.

His discriminations in respect to his heir were, in fine, not more angular than any others to be observed in him; and Mr.Verver received perhaps from no source so distinct an impression of being for him an odd and important phenomenon as he received from this impunity of appropriation, these unchallenged nursery hours.