Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/100

stalled there. Heaven knew she wanted her child back and had made every plan of her own for removing her—what she couldn't, for the present at least, forgive any one concerned was the meddling, underhand way in which Sir Claude had brought about the transfer. Maisie carried more of the weight of this resentment than even Mrs. Wix's confidential ingenuity could lighten for her; especially as Sir Claude himself was not at all ingenious, though indeed, on the other hand, he was not at all crushed. He was amused and intermittent and at moments most startling; he brought out to his young companion, with a frankness that agitated her much more than he seemed to guess, that he depended on her not letting her mother, when she should see her, get anything out of her about anything Mrs. Beale might have said to him. He came in and out; he professed, in joke, to take tremendous precautions; he showed a positive disposition to romp. He chaffed Mrs. Wix till she was purple with the pleasure of it, and reminded Maisie of the reticence he expected of her till she set her teeth like an Indian captive. Her lessons, these first days and indeed for long after, seemed to be