The Colonel just hung fire—but it came. “Then why the deuce does he—oh, poor dear man!—behave as if he were?”
She took a moment to meet it. “How do you know how he behaves?”
“Well, my own love, we see how Charlotte does!” Again, at this, she faltered; but again she rose. “Ah, isn’t my whole point that he’s charming to her?”
“Doesn’t it depend a bit on what she regards as charming?”
She faced the question as if it were flippant, then with a headshake of dignity she brushed it away. “It’s Mr. Verver who’s really young—it’s Charlotte who’s really old. And what I was saying,” she added, “isn’t affected!”
“You were saying”—he did her the justice—“that they’re all guileless.”
“That they were. Guileless, all, at first—quite extraordinarily. It’s what I mean by their failure to see that the more they took for granted they could work together the more they were really working apart. For I repeat,” Fanny went on, “that I really believe Charlotte and the Prince honestly to have made up their minds, originally, that their very esteem for Mr. Verver—which was serious, as well it might be!—would save them.”
“I see.” The Colonel inclined himself. “And save HIM.”
“It comes to the same thing!”
“Then save Maggie.”