Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/117

Rh was: that was one of the merits for which Mrs. Wix most commended him. What therefore was Maisie herself? and, in another relation to the matter, what therefore was mamma? It took her some time to puzzle out, with the aid of an experiment or two, that it would n't do to talk about mamma's youth. She even went so far one day, in the presence of that lady's thick color and marked lines, as to wonder if it would occur to any one but herself to do so. Yet if she was n't young, then she was old, and this threw an odd light on her having a husband of a different generation. Mr. Farange was still older—that Maisie perfectly knew; and it brought her in due course to the perception of how much more, since Mrs. Beale was younger than Sir Claude, papa must be older than Mrs. Beale. Such discoveries were disconcerting and even a trifle confounding: these persons, it appeared, were not of the age they ought to be. This was somehow particularly the case with mamma, and the fact made her reflect with some relief on her not having gone with Mrs. Wix into the question of Sir Claude's attachment to his wife. She was conscious that in confining their attention to the state of her ladyship's own affections they