Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/352

that it gives you.I'm not afraid of her, I assure you; you must already have seen for yourself that there's nothing I'm afraid of now! Let me go to her—I 'll settle her, and I 'll take that woman back without a hair of her touched. Let me put in the two or three days—let me wind up the connection! You stay here with Maisie, with the carriage and the larks and the luxury; then I 'll return to you, and we 'll go off together and we 'll live together without a cloud. Take me, take me," she went on and on—the tide of her eloquence was high. "Here I am; I know what I am and what I ain't; but I say boldly to the face of you both that I 'll do better for you, far, than ever she will even try to. I say it to yours, Sir Claude, even though I owe you the very dress on my back and the very shoes on my feet. I owe you everything—that 's just the reason; and to pay it back, in profusion—what can that be but what I want? Here I am—here I am!" she repeated, spreading herself with an air of exhibition that, combined with her intensity and her decorations, appeared to suggest her for strange offices and devotions, for ridiculous replacements and substitutions. She manipulated her gown as she talked, she