'Quiet' is more than _I_ am, and you leave me far behind." With which, again, for an instant, Mrs.
Assingham frankly brooded.

"'Now that I understand,' you say--but there's one thing I don't understand." And the next minute, while her companion waited, she had mentioned it.

"How can Charlotte, after all, not have pressed him, not have attacked him about it?
How can she not have asked him--asked him on his honour, I mean--if you know ?" "How can she 'not'?
Why, of course," said the Princess limpidly, "she MUST!" "Well then-- ?" "Well then, you think, he must have told her?
Why, exactly what I mean," said Maggie, "is that he will have done nothing of the sort; will, as I say, have maintained the contrary." Fanny Assingham weighed it.

"Under her direct appeal for the truth ?" "Under her direct appeal for the truth." "Her appeal to his honour ?" "Her appeal to his honour.

That's my point." Fanny Assingham braved it.