Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/166

152 the Regent's Park; but she did n't know why he should make a mystery of that, and it was not till they passed under a pretty arch and drew up at a white house in a terrace, from which the view, she thought, must be lovely, that, mystified, she clutched him and broke out: "I shall see papa?"

He looked down at her with a kind smile. "No; probably not. I have n't brought you for that."

"Then, whose house is it?"

"It 's your father's. They 've moved here."

She looked about; she had known Mr. Farange in four or five houses, and there was nothing astonishing in this except that it was the nicest place yet. "But I shall see Mrs. Beale?"

"It 's to see her that I brought you."

She stared, very white and with her hand on his arm; though they had stopped she kept him sitting in the cab. "To leave me, do you mean?"

He hesitated. "It 's not for me to say if you can stay. We must look into it."

"But if I do I shall see papa?"

"Oh, some time or other, no doubt." Then Sir Claude went on: "Have you really so very great a dread of that?"