Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/458

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WHAT MAISIE KNEW

one yellow and two pink. He had told her the pink were for herself and the yellow one for Mrs. Beale, implying, in an interesting way, that these were the vivid divisions, in France, of literature for the young and for the old. She knew that they looked exactly as if they were going to get into the train, and she presently brought out to her companion: "I wish we could go. Won't you take me?"

He continued to smile. "Would you really come?"

"Oh yes, oh yes! Try!"

"Do you want me to take our tickets?"

"Yes, take them."

"Without any luggage?"

She showed their two armfuls, smiling at him as he smiled at her, but so conscious of being more frightened than she had ever been in her life, that she seemed to catch all her whiteness as in a glass. Then she knew that what she saw was Sir Claude's whiteness; he was as frightened as herself. "Haven't we got plenty?" she asked. "Take the tickets—have n't you time? When does the train go?"

Sir Claude turned to a porter. "When does the train go?"