Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/152

138 after all quite so desperate or quite so simple. But I give you my word before her, and I give it to her before you, that I 'll never, never forsake you. Do you hear that, old fellow? and do you take it in? I 'll stick to you through everything." Maisie did take it in—took it with a long tremor of all her little being; and then, as, to emphasize it, he drew her closer, she buried her head on his shoulder and cried without sound and without pain. While she was so engaged she became aware that his own breast was agitated, and gathered from it with rapture that his tears were as silently flowing. Presently she heard a loud sob from Mrs. Wix—Mrs. Wix was the only one who made a noise.

She was to have made, for some time, none other but this, though within a few days, in conversation with her pupil, she described her relations with Ida as positively excruciating. There was as yet nevertheless no attempt to eject her by force, and she recognized that Sir Claude, taking such a stand as never before, had intervened with passion and success. As Maisie remembered—and remembered wholly without disdain—that he had told her he was afraid of her