Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/205

Rh "Mrs. Wix?"

"My old governess."

This again seemed amusing to the Captain. "She mixed him up, your old governess. He's an awful beast. Your mother never looked at such a hog."

He was as positive as he was friendly, but he dropped for a minute after this into a silence that gave Maisie, confused but ingenious, a chance to redeem the mistake of pretending to know too much by the humility of inviting further correction. "And does n't she know the Baron?"

"Oh, I dare say. But he 's another ass." After which, abruptly, with a different look, he put down again on the back of her own the hand he had momentarily removed. Maisie even thought he colored a little. "I want tremendously to speak to you. You must never believe any harm of your mother."

"Oh, I assure you I don't!" she cried, blushing, herself, up to her eyes in a sudden surge of deprecation of such a thought.

The Captain, bending his head, raised her hand to his lips with a benevolence that made her wish her glove had been nicer. "Of course you don't when you know how fond she is of you."