Something exquisite, faintly eager, in the prompt simplicity of it, supported her friend further. “And the Prince believed. His belief was real. Just as he believed in himself.”
Maggie spent a minute in taking it from her. “He believed in himself?”
“Just as I too believed in him. For I absolutely did, Maggie.” To which Fanny then added: “And I believe in him yet. I mean,” she subjoined—“well, I mean I DO.”
Maggie again took it from her; after which she was again, restlessly, set afloat. Then when this had come to an end: “And do you believe in Charlotte yet?”
Mrs. Assingham had a demur that she felt she could now afford. “We’ll talk of Charlotte some other day. They both, at any rate, thought themselves safe at the time.”
“Then why did they keep from me everything I might have known?”
Her friend bent upon her the mildest eyes. “Why did I myself keep it from you?”
“Oh, you weren’t, for honour, obliged.”
“Dearest Maggie,” the poor woman broke out on this, “you ARE divine!”
“They pretended to love me,” the Princess went on. “And they pretended to love HIM.”