Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/248

234 flounces of the fireplace was: "Do you know, my dear, I shall soon be off to America?"

It struck his daughter both as a short cut and as the way he would n't have said it to his wife. But his wife figured with a bright superficial assurance in her response. "Do you mean with Mrs. Beale?"

Her father looked at her hard. "Don't be a little ass!"

Her silence appeared to represent a concentrated effort not to be. "Then with the Countess?"

"With her or without her, my dear—that concerns only your poor daddy. She has big interests over there, and she wants me to take a look at them."

Maisie threw herself into them. "Will that take very long?"

"Yes; they 're in such a muddle—it may take months. Now what I want to hear, you know, is whether you would like to come along."

Planted once more before him in the middle of the room, she felt herself turning white. "I?" she gasped, yet feeling as soon as she had spoken that such a note of dismay was not altogether pretty. She felt it still more while her father replied, with a