Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/133

Rh language, always denied she could put forth.

Mr. Perriam, however, clearly recognized it in the grace with which he met her. "I never said you ain't wonderful. Did I ever say it, hey?" and he appealed with pleasant confidence to the testimony of the schoolroom, about which itself also he evidently felt that he ought to have something to say. "So this is their little place, hey? Charming, charming, charming!" he repeated as he vaguely looked round. The interrupted students clung together as if they had been personally exposed; but Ida relieved their embarrassment by a hunch of her high shoulders. This time the smile she addressed to Mr. Perriam had a beauty of sudden sadness. "What on earth's a poor woman to do?"

The visitor's grimace grew more marked as he continued to look, and the conscious little schoolroom felt still more like a cage at a menagerie. "Charming, charming, charming!" Mr. Perriam insisted; but the parenthesis closed with a prompt click. "There you are!" said her ladyship. "Bye-bye!" she sharply added. The next minute they were on the stairs, and Mrs. Wix and her companion, at the open door and looking