Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/349

as she called it, different in kind from that obtained by Mrs. Beale and, originally, by her ladyship. But Maisie could quite feel with him now that he had really not expected that advantage to be driven so home. Oh, they had n't at all got yet to where Mrs. Wix would stop, for the next minute she was driving harder than ever. It was the result of his saying with a certain dryness, though so kindly that what most affected Maisie in it was his patience: "My dear friend, it's simply a matter in which I must judge for myself. You 've judged for me, I know, a good deal of late, in a way that I appreciate, I assure you, down to the ground. But you can't do it always: no one can do that for another, don't you see? in every case. There are exceptions, particular cases that turn up and that are awfully delicate. It would be too easy if I could shift it all off on you; it would be allowing you to incur an amount of responsibility that I should simply become quite ashamed of. You 'll find, I 'm sure, that you 'll have quite as much as you 'll enjoy if you 'll be so good as to accept the situation as circumstances happen to make it for you, and to stay here with our friend, till I rejoin you, on the footing of as