Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/255

Rh Maisie knew all about bolting, but, decidedly, she was older, and there was something in her that could wince at the way her father made the word boom out. It prompted her to amend his allusion; which she did by returning: "I don't know what she ' 11 do. But she 'll be happy."

"Let us hope so," said Beale with bright, unusual mildness. "The more happy she is, at any rate, the less she'll want you about. That's why I press you," he agreeably pursued, "to consider this handsome offer—I mean seriously, you know—of your sole surviving parent." Their eyes, at this, met again in a long and extraordinary communion which terminated in his ejaculating: "Ah, you little scoundrel!" She took it from him in the manner that it seemed to her he would prefer and with a success that encouraged him to go on: "You are a deep little devil!" Her silence, ticking like a watch, acknowledged even this; in confirmation of which he finally brought out: "You 've settled it with the other pair!"

"Well, what if I have?"—she sounded to herself most bold.

Her father, quite as in the old days, guffawed. "Why, don't you know they 're awful?"