"You've met, I gather," said Fanny Assingham, "to-night."
"Yes—as far as that goes. But what I mean is that I might— placed for it as we both are—go to see HIM."
"And do you?" Fanny asked with almost mistaken solemnity.
The perception of this excess made Charlotte, whether for gravity or for irony, hang fire a minute. "I HAVE been. But that's nothing," she said, "in itself, and I tell you of it only to show you how our situation works. It essentially becomes one, a situation, for both of us. The Prince's, however, is his own affair—I meant but to speak of mine."
"Your situation's perfect," Mrs. Assingham presently declared.
"I don't say it isn't. Taken, in fact, all round, I think it is. And I don't, as I tell you, complain of it. The only thing is that I have to act as it demands of
