"Mrs. Wix?"
"My old governess."
This again seemed amusing to the Captain. "She mixed him up, your old governess. He's an awful beast. Your mother never looked at such a hog."
He was as positive as he was friendly, but he dropped for a minute after this into a silence that gave Maisie, confused but ingenious, a chance to redeem the mistake of pretending to know too much by the humility of inviting further correction. "And does n't she know the Baron?"
"Oh, I dare say. But he 's another ass." After which, abruptly, with a different look, he put down again on the back of her own the hand he had momentarily removed. Maisie even thought he colored a little. "I want tremendously to speak to you. You must never believe any harm of your mother."
"Oh, I assure you I don't!" she cried, blushing, herself, up to her eyes in a sudden surge of deprecation of such a thought.
The Captain, bending his head, raised her hand to his lips with a benevolence that made her wish her glove had been nicer. "Of course you don't when you know how fond she is of you."
