But Maggie had, the next moment faced about as if without hearing her. "Father did it for ME—did it all and only for me."
Mrs. Assingham, with a certain promptness, threw up her head; but she faltered again before she spoke. "Well—!"
It was only an intended word, but Maggie showed after an instant that it had reached her. "Do you mean that that's the reason, that that's A reason—?"
Fanny at first, however, feeling the response in this, didn't say all she meant; she said for the moment something else instead. "He did it for you—largely at least for you. And it was for you that I did, in my smaller, interested way—well, what I could do. For I could do something," she continued; "I thought I saw your interest as he himself saw it. And I thought I saw Charlotte's. I believed in her."
"And I believed in her," said Maggie.
Mrs. Assingham waited again; but she presently pushed on. "She believed then in herself."
"Ah?" Maggie murmured.
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."