"I never told you so." "Well, Charlotte herself soon enough told me." "But I never told HER," her father had answered.
"Are you very sure ?" she had presently asked.
"Well, I like to think how thoroughly I was taken with her, and how right I was, and how fortunate, to have that for my basis.

I told her all the good I thought of her." "Then that," Maggie had returned, "was precisely part of the good.
I mean it was precisely part of it that she could so beautifully understand." "Yes--understand everything." "Everything--and in particular your reasons.

Her telling me--that showed me how she had understood." They were face to face again now, and she saw she had made his colour rise; it was as if he were still finding in her eyes the concrete image, the enacted scene, of her passage with Charlotte, which he was now hearing of for the first time and as to which it would have been natural he should question her further.

His forbearance to do so would but mark, precisely, the complication of his fears.

"What she does like," he finally said, "is the way it has succeeded." "Your marriage ?" "Yes--my whole idea.