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102 mother for paying calls on her father's wife? And of course Mrs. Beale could n't come to Ida's—Ida would tear her limb from limb. Maisie, with this talk of pretexts, remembered how much Mrs. Beale had made of her being a good one, and how, for such a function, it was her fate to be either much depended on or much missed. Sir Claude moreover recognized on this occasion that perhaps things would take a turn later on, and he wound up by saying: "I 'm sure she does sincerely care for you—how can she possibly help it? She 's very young and very pretty and very clever; I think she 's charming. But we must walk very straight. If you 'll help me, you know, I 'll help you," he concluded in the pleasant fraternizing, equalizing, not a bit patronizing way which made the child ready to go through anything for him, and the beauty of which, as she dimly felt, was that it was not a deceitful descent to her years, but a real indifference to them.

It gave her moments of secret rapture—moments of believing she might help him indeed. The only mystification in this was the imposing time of life that her elders spoke of as youth. For Sir Claude then Mrs. Beale was "young," just as for Mrs. Wix Sir Claude