Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/173

Rh after she had dropped, to Sir Claude, some reference to a previous meeting he exclaimed with an air of consternation and yet with something of a laugh that he had denied to their companion their having, since the day he came for her, seen each other till that moment.

Mrs. Beale diffused surprise. "Why did you do anything so silly?"

"To protect your reputation."

"From Maisie?" Mrs. Beale was much amused. "My reputation with Maisie is too good to suffer."

"But you believed me, you rascal, did n't you?" Sir Claude asked of the child.

She looked at him—she smiled. "Her reputation did suffer. I discovered you had been here."

He was not too chagrined to laugh. "The way, my dear, you talk of that sort of thing!"

"How should she talk," Mrs. Beale inquired, "after all this ruinous time with her mother?"

"It was not mamma who told me," Maisie explained. "It was only Mrs. Wix." She was hesitating whether to bring out before Sir Claude the source of Mrs. Wix's