Mr. Verver deferred, yet he discriminated. "I don't see how you can give credit without knowing the facts."
"Can't I give it—generally—for dignity? Dignity, I mean, in misfortune."
"You've got to postulate the misfortune first."
"Well," said Maggie, "I can do that. Isn't it always a misfortune to be—when you're so fine—so wasted? And yet," she went on, "not to wail about it, not to look even as if you knew it?"
Mr. Verver seemed at first to face this as a large question, and then, after a little, solicited by another view, to let the appeal drop. "Well, she mustn't be wasted. We won't at least have waste."
It produced in Maggie's face another gratitude. "Then, dear sir, that's all I want."
And it would apparently have settled their question and ended their talk if her father had not,
