Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/257

Rh "They've made one of you. Upon my honour it 's quite awful. It shows the sort of people they are. Don't you understand," Beale pursued, "that when they 've made you as horrid as they can—as horrid as themselves—they 'll just simply chuck you?"

Maisie, at this, had a flicker of passion. "They won't chuck me!"

"Excuse me," her father courteously insisted. "It 's my duty to put it before you. I should n't forgive myself if I did n't point out to you that they 'll cease to require you." He spoke as if with an appeal to her intelligence that she must be ashamed not adequately to meet, and this gave a still higher grace to his superior delicacy.

It had after an instant the illuminating effect he intended. "Cease to require me because they won't care—?" She paused with that sketch of her idea.

"Of course Sir Claude won't care if his wife bolts. That 's his game—it will suit him down to the ground."

This was a proposition Maisie could perfectly embrace, but it still left a loophole for triumph. She considered a little. "You mean if mamma does n't come back ever at all?" The composure with which her face