Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/242

228 make further contributions. "We came awfully fast," she added.

Her father again laughed loud. "Yes, my dear—I made you step out!" Beale hesitated; then he added: "I want her to see you." Maisie, at this, rejoiced in the attention that, for their evening out, Mrs. Beale, even to the extent of personally "doing up" her old hat, had given her appearance. Meanwhile her father went on: "You 'll like her awfully."

"Oh, I 'm sure I shall!"— after which, either from the effect of having said so much or from that of a sudden glimpse of the impossibility of saying more, she felt a complication and sought refuge in a minor branch of the subject. "I thought she was Mrs. Cuddon."

Beale's gaiety rather increased than diminished. "You mean my wife did? My dear child, my wife 's a damned fool." He had the oddest air of speaking of his wife as of a person whom she might scarcely have known; so that the refuge of her scruple did n't prove particularly happy. Beale, on the other hand, appeared after an instant himself to feel a scruple. "What I mean is, to speak seriously, that she does n't really know