She knew but that, all the while--all the while of her sitting there among the others without her--she had wanted to go straight to this detached member of the party and make somehow, for her support, the last demonstration.

A pretext was all that was needful, and Maggie after another instant had found one.

She had caught a glimpse, before Mrs.Verver disappeared, of her carrying a book--made out, half lost in the folds of her white dress, the dark cover of a volume that was to explain her purpose in case of her being met with surprise, and the mate of which, precisely, now lay on Maggie's table.

The book was an old novel that the Princess had a couple of days before mentioned having brought down from Portland Place in the charming original form of its three volumes.

Charlotte had hailed, with a specious glitter of interest, the opportunity to read it, and our young woman had, thereupon, on the morrow, directed her maid to carry it to Mrs.Verver's apartments.