"We ARE prepared--for anything, for everything; and AS we are, practically, so she must take us.

She's condemned to consistency; she's doomed, poor thing, to a genial optimism.

That, luckily for her, however, is very much the law of her nature.

She was born to soothe and to smooth.

Now then, therefore," Mrs.
Verver gently laughed, "she has the chance of her life!" "So that her present professions may, even at the best, not be sincere ?--may be but a mask for doubts and fears, and for gaining time ?" The Prince had looked, with the question, as if this, again, could trouble him, and it determined in his companion a slight impatience.
"You keep talking about such things as if they were our affair at all.