Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/337

manner that might have struck the child as the depression of a credulity conscious not so much of its needs as of its dimensions. Maisie was soon enough—though it scarce happened before bedtime—confronted again with the different sort of prospectus for which she reserved her criticism. They remounted together to their sitting-room while Sir Claude, who said he would join them later, remained below to smoke and to converse with the old acquaintances that he met wherever he turned. He had offered his companions, for coffee, the enjoyment of the salon de lecture; but Mrs. Wix had replied promptly, and with something of an air, that it struck her their own apartments supplied them every convenience. They supplied the good lady herself, Maisie could immediately observe, not only that of this rather grand reference—which, already emulous, so far as it went, of her pupil, she made as if she had spent her life in salons; but that of a lean French sofa where she could sit and stare at the faint French lamp (in default of the French clock that had stopped) as if for some account of the time Sir Claude would so markedly interpose. Her demeanor accused him so directly of hovering beyond