Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/283

Rh on her daughter, whom she gracefully drew to her and in whom, at her touch, the fear just kindled gave a second jump, but now in quite another direction. Sir Claude, on the further side, resumed his seat and his newspapers, and the three grouped themselves like a family party: his connection, in the oddest way in the world, almost cynically, and in a flash, acknowledged, and the mother patting the child into conformities unspeakable.

Maisie could already feel that it was not Sir Claude and she who were caught. She had the positive sense of catching their relative, catching her in the act of getting rid of her burden with a finality that showed her as unprecedentedly relaxed. Oh, yes, the fear had dropped, and she had never been so irrevocably parted with as in the pressure of possession now supremely exerted by Ida's long-gloved and much-bangled arms. "I went to the Regent's Park"—this was presently her ladyship's answer to Sir Claude.

"Do you mean to-day?"

"This morning—just after your own call there. That's how I find you out; that's what has brought me."

Sir Claude considered, and Maisie waited. "Whom then did you see?"