Amerigo and I," Maggie had said, "perfectly rub on together." "Well then, there we are." "I see"-- and she had again, with sublime blandness, assented.

"There we are." "Charlotte and I too," her father had gaily proceeded, "perfectly rub on together." And then he had appeared for a little to be making time.

"To put it only so," he had mildly and happily added--"to put it only so!" He had spoken as if he might easily put it much better, yet as if the humour of contented understatement fairly sufficed for the occasion.
He had played then, either all consciously or all unconsciously, into Charlotte's hands; and the effect of this was to render trebly oppressive Maggie's conviction of Charlotte's plan.

She had done what she wanted, his wife had--which was also what Amerigo had made her do.
She had kept her test, Maggie's test, from becoming possible, and had applied instead a test of her own.

It was exactly as if she had known that her stepdaughter would be afraid to be summoned to say, under the least approach to cross-examination, why any change was desirable; and it was, for our young woman herself, still more prodigiously, as if her father had been capable of calculations to match, of judging it important he shouldn't be brought to demand of her what was the matter with her.