It's as if we had agreed from the first not to go into that--such an arrangement being of course charming for ME.

You can't say, you know, that I haven't stuck to it." He didn't say so then--even with the opportunity given him of her stopping once more to catch her breath.

He said instead: "Oh, my dear--oh, oh!" But it made no difference, know as she might what a past--still so recent and yet so distant--it alluded to; she repeated her denial, warning him off, on her side, from spoiling the truth of her contention.
"I never went into anything, and you see I don't; I've continued to adore you--but what's that, from a decent daughter to such a father?
what but a question of convenient arrangement, our having two houses, three houses, instead of one (you would have arranged for fifty if I had wished!) and my making it easy for you to see the child?
You don't claim, I suppose, that my natural course, once you had set up for yourself, would have been to ship you back to American City ?" These were direct inquiries, they quite rang out, in the soft, wooded air; so that Adam Verver, for a minute, appeared to meet them with reflection.

She saw reflection, however, quickly enough show him what to do with them.

"Do you know, Mag, what you make me wish when you talk that way ?" And he waited again, while she further got from him the sense of something that had been behind, deeply in the shade, coming cautiously to the front and just feeling its way before presenting itself.