But Maggie at last broke it. "If Charlotte doesn't understand me, it is that I've prevented her. I've chosen to deceive her and to lie to her."
The Prince kept his eyes on her. "I know what you've chosen to do. But I've chosen to do the same."
"Yes," said Maggie after an instant—"my choice was made when I had guessed yours. But you mean," she asked, "that she understands YOU?"
"It presents small difficulty!"
"Are you so sure?" Maggie went on.
"Sure enough. But it doesn't matter." He waited an instant; then looking up through the fumes of his smoke, "She's stupid," he abruptly opined.
"O—oh!" Maggie protested in a long wail.
It had made him in fact quickly change colour. "What I mean is that she's not, as you pronounce her, unhappy." And he recovered, with this, all his logic. "Why is she unhappy if she doesn't know?"
"Doesn't know—?" She tried to make his logic difficult.
"Doesn't know that YOU know."