They're not grounds for me--they weren't when I accepted Adam's preference that I should come to-night without him: just as I accept, absolutely, as a fixed rule, ALL his preferences.

But that doesn't alter the fact, of course, that my husband's daughter, rather than his wife, should have felt SHE could, after all, be the one to stay with him, the one to make the sacrifice of this hour--seeing, especially, that the daughter has a husband of her own in the field." With which she produced, as it were, her explanation.

"I've simply to see the truth of the matter--see that Maggie thinks more, on the whole, of fathers than of husbands.

And my situation is such," she went on, "that this becomes immediately, don't you understand?
a thing I have to count with." Mrs.Assingham, vaguely heaving, panting a little but trying not to show it, turned about, from some inward spring, in her seat.

"If you mean such a thing as that she doesn't adore the Prince--!" "I don't say she doesn't adore him.