Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/198

184 from her father," said Sir Claude—a statement that astonished his companion, who could also measure its lively action on her mother.

There was visibly, however, an influence that made Ida consider; she glanced at the gentleman she had left, who, having strolled with his hands in his pockets to some distance, stood there with unembarrassed vagueness. With her great hard eyes on him for a moment she smiled; then she looked again at Sir Claude. "I 've given her up to her father to keep—not to get rid of by sending her about the town either with you or with any one else. If she 's not to mind me, let him come and tell me so. I decline to take it from another person, and you 're a fool to pretend that, with your hypocritical meddling, you 've a leg to stand on. I know your game, and I 've something now to say to you about it."

Sir Claude gave a squeeze of the child's arm. "Did n't I tell you she would have, Miss Farange?"

"You 're uncommonly afraid to hear it," Ida went on; "but if you think she 'll protect you from it you 're mightily mistaken." She meant what she said. "I 'll give her the