Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/266

252, with the cab at the door, it was perhaps as a final confession of not having much to boast of that, on taking leave of her, he managed to press her to his bosom without her seeing his face. For herself, she was so eager to go that their parting reminded her of nothing—not even of a single one of all the "nevers" that, above, as the penalty of not cleaving to him, he had attached to the question of their meeting again. There was something in the Countess that falsified everything, even the great interests in America, and yet more the first flush of that superiority to Mrs. Beale and to mamma which had been expressed in silver boxes. These were still there, but perhaps there were no great interests in America. Mamma had known an American who was not a bit like this one. She was not, however, of noble rank; her name was only Mrs. Tucker. Maisie's detachment would, all the same, have been more complete if she had not suddenly had to exclaim: "Oh, dear—I have n't any money!"

Her father's teeth, at this, were such a picture of appetite without action as to be a match for any plea of poverty. "Make your stepmother pay."