Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/160

146 "Than of what?" Sir Claude asked as she hesitated for a comparison.

She thought over all the objects of dread. "Than of a wild elephant!" she at last suggested. "And you are too," she reminded him as he laughed.

"Oh, yes; I am too."

Again she meditated. "Then why did you marry her?"

"Just because I was afraid."

"Even when she loved you?"

"That made her the more alarming!"

For Maisie herself, though her companion seemed to find it droll, this opened up depths of gravity. "More alarming than she is now?"

"Well, in a different way. Alarm, unfortunately, is a very big thing, and there's a great variety of kinds."

She took this in with complete intelligence. "Then I think I 've got them all."

"You?" her friend cried. "Nonsense! You 're thoroughly game."

"I 'm awfully afraid of Mrs. Beale," Maisie insisted.

He raised his smooth brows. "That charming woman?"

"Well," she answered, "you can't