"Well, I may enjoy it," said Maggie, "but I'm not the cause of
it."

"You're the cause," her husband declared, "of the greater part of
everything that's good among us." But she received this tribute
in silence, and the next moment he pursued: "If Mrs. Verver has
arrears of time with you to make up, as you say, she'll scarcely
do it--or you scarcely will--by our cutting, your and my cutting,
too loose."

"I see what you mean," Maggie mused.

He let her for a little to give her attention to it; after which,
"Shall I just quite, of a sudden," he asked, "propose him a
journey?"

Maggie hesitated, but she brought forth the fruit of reflection.
"It would have the merit that Charlotte then would be with me--
with me, I mean, so much more. Also that I shouldn't, by choosing
such a time for going away, seem unconscious and ungrateful, seem
not to respond, seem in fact rather to wish to shake her off. I
should respond, on the contrary, very markedly--by being here
alone with her for a month."

"And would you like to be here alone with her for a month?"

"I could do with it beautifully. Or we might even," she said
quite gaily, "go together down to Fawns."