Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/214

200 he did n't wish even to be looked at. At this she quickly removed her gaze, and he said rather curtly: "Well, who in the world is the fellow?"

She felt herself flooded with prudence. "Oh, I have n't found out!" This sounded as if she meant he ought to have done so himself; but she could only face doggedly the ugliness of seeming disagreeable as she used to face it in the hours when her father, for her blankness, called her a dirty little donkey and her mother, for her falsity, pushed her out of the room.

"Then what have you been doing all this time?"

"Oh, I don't know." It was of the essence of her method not to be silly by halves.

"Then did n't the scoundrel say anything?" They had got down by the lake and were walking fast.

"Well, not very much."

"He did n't speak of your mother?"

"Oh, yes, a little."

"Then what I ask you, please, is how." She was silent a minute—so long that he presently went on: "I say, you know—don't you hear me?"

At this she produced: "Well, I'm afraid I did n't attend to him very much."