Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/179

Rh, as a connection in which they could honorably see her participate; though this plea of mere "decency" might well have appeared to fall below her rosy little vision. "If we're not good for you," he exclaimed, "I 'll be hanged if I know who we shall be good for!"

Mrs. Beale showed the child an intenser radiance. "I dare say you will save us—from one thing and another."

"Oh, I know what she 'll save me from!" Sir Claude roundly declared. "There'll be rows, of course," he went on.

Mrs. Beale quickly took him up. "Yes, but they'll be nothing—for you, at least—to the rows your wife makes as it is. I can bear what I suffer—I can't bear what you do."

"We 're doing a good deal for you, you know, young woman," Sir Claude went on to Maisie with the same gravity.

His little charge glowed with a sense of obligation and the eagerness of her desire it should be known how little was lost on her. "Oh, I know!"

"Then you must keep us all right!" This time he laughed.

"How you talk to her!" cried Mrs. Beale.