Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/207

Rh her. "She 's tremendous fun—she can do all sorts of things better than I 've ever seen anyone. She has the pluck of fifty—and I know: I assure you I do. She has the nerve for a tiger-shoot—by Jove, I 'd take her! And she 's awfully open and generous, don't you know?—there are women that are such horrid sneaks. She 'd go through anything for any one she likes." He appeared to watch for a moment the effect on his companion of this emphasis; then he gave a small sigh that mourned the limits of the speakable. But it was almost with the note of a challenge that he wound up: "Look here—she 's true!"

Maisie had so little desire to assert the contrary that she found herself, in the intensity of her response, throbbing with a joy still less utterable than the essence of the Captain's appreciation. She was fairly hushed with the sense that he spoke of her mother as she had never heard any one speak. It came over her as she sat silent that, after all, this admiration and this respect were quite new words, which took a distinction from the fact that nothing in the least resembling them in quality had on any occasion dropped from the lips of her father, of Mrs. Beale, of Sir Claude or even of Mrs. Wix. What it appeared to her to