XXVII
The greatest wonder of all was the way the announcement, so far as could be judged, was launched predominantly at Mrs. Wix, who, as if from sudden failure of strength, sank into a chair while Maisie surrendered to the visitor's embrace. As soon as the child was liberated she met, with profundity, Mrs. Wix's stupefaction and actually was able to see that, while in a manner sustaining the encounter, her face yet seemed with intensity to say: "Now, for God's sake, don't crow 'I told you so!'" Maisie was somehow on the spot aware of an absence of disposition to crow; it had taken her but an extra minute to arrive at such a quick survey of the objects surrounding Mrs. Beale as showed that among them was no appurtenance of Sir Claude's. She knew his dressing-bag now—oh, with the fondest knowledge!—and there was an instant during which its not being there was a stroke of the worst news. She was yet to learn what it could be to recognize in some perception of a gap the sign of extinction, and therefore
