Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/178

164 "Be happy now!" Maisie throbbed with shy tenderness.

"I think I shall be. You 'll save me."

"As I 'm saving Sir Claude?" the little girl precipitated.

Mrs. Beale, a trifle surprised, appealed to her visitor. "Is she really?"

He showed high amusement at Maisie's question. "It 's dear Mrs. Wix's idea. There may be something in it."

"He makes me his duty—he makes me his life," Maisie continued to her stepmother.

"Why, that 's what I want to do!" And Mrs. Beale, so anticipated, turned pink with astonishment.

"Well, you can do it together. Then he 'll have to come!"

Mrs. Beale by this time had her young friend fairly in her lap; she smiled up at Sir Claude. "Shall we do it together?"

His laughter had dropped and for a moment he turned his handsome, serious face not to his hostess, but to his stepdaughter. "Well, it 's rather more decent than some things. Upon my soul, the way things are going, it seems to me the only decency!" He had the air of arguing it out to Maisie, of presenting it, through an impulse of