What Does Adam Know?

Nobody in The Golden Bowl can see into Adam Verver, and neither can you. Garth Greenwell follows Maggie through two chapters in which nothing much happens and everything changes: the two couples are never apart, every surface stays polished, and a suggestion made weeks earlier comes back to her looking like something colder. She learns what she cannot say, and what saying it would cost her father. Then the question turns. Is Adam as content as he seems, or is he playing the same careful game his daughter is? The evidence James gives is small: one prefix, and one word set in italics. Greenwell shows you where to look.