Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/174

160 when Mrs. Beale, addressing the young man, showed her the vanity of her scruples.

"Do you know that preposterous person came to see me a day or two ago?—when I told her that I had seen you repeatedly."

Sir Claude, this time, was disconcerted. "The old cat! She never told me. Then you thought I lied?" he demanded of Maisie.

She was flurried by the term with which he had qualified her patient friend, but she felt the occasion to be one to which she must in every way lend herself. "Oh, I did n't mind! But Mrs. Wix did," she added with an intention benevolent to her governess.

Her intention was not very effective as regards Mrs. Beale. "Mrs. Wix is too idiotic!" that lady declared.

"But to you, of all people," Sir Claude asked, "what had she to say?"

"Why, that, like Mrs. Micawber—whom she must, I think, rather resemble—she will never, never, never desert Miss Farange."

"Oh, I 'll make that all right!" Sir Claude cheerfully returned.

"I 'm sure I hope so, my dear man," said Mrs. Beale, while Maisie wondered just how he would proceed. Before she had time to