Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/147

Rh it won't. I beg your pardon," he continued to his stepdaughter, "for appearing to discuss that sort of possibility under your sharp little nose. But the fact is that I forget half the time that Ida is your sainted mother."

"So do I!" said Maisie, to put him the more in the right.

Her protectress, at this, was upon her again. "The little desolate, precious pet!" For the rest of the conversation she was enclosed in Mrs. Wix's arms, and as they sat there interlocked Sir Claude, before them with his teacup, looked down at them in deepening thought. Shrink together as they might they could n't help, Maisie felt, being a very massive image, a large, loose, ponderous presentment of what Mrs. Wix required of him. She knew moreover that this lady did n't make it better by adding in a moment: "Of course we should n't dream of a whole house. Any sort of little lodging, however humble, would be only too blessed."

"But it would have to be something that would hold us all," said Sir Claude.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Wix concurred; "the whole point is our being together. While you 're waiting, before you act, for her ladyship to take some step, our position here