Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/164

150 but her general consciousness of the way things would be both perpetrated and resented always eased off for her the strain of any particular mystery. "There may be some mistake. He says he hasn't."

Mrs. Wix turned paler, as if this were a still deeper ground for alarm. "He says so?—he denies that he has seen her?"

"He told me so three days ago. Perhaps she 's mistaken," Maisie suggested.

"Do you mean perhaps she lies? She lies whenever it suits her, I 'm very sure. But I know when people lie. That 's what I 've loved in you: you never do. Mrs. Beale did n't yesterday at any rate. He has seen her."

Maisie was silent a little. "He says not," she then repeated. "Perhaps—perhaps—" Once more she paused.

"Do you mean perhaps he lies?"

"Gracious goodness, no!" Maisie shouted.

Mrs. Wix's bitterness, however, again overflowed. "He does, he does!" she cried, "and it 's that that 's just the worst of it! They 'll take you, they 'll take you, and what in the world will then become of me?" She threw herself afresh upon her pupil and wept over her with the inevitable effect of causing