Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/286

272 poor Maisie was mystified and charmed, puzzled with a glimpse of something that in all the years had at intervals peeped out. Ida smiled at Sir Claude with the strange air she had on such occasions of defying an interlocutor to keep it up as long; her huge eyes, her red lips, the intense marks in her face, formed an illumination as distinct and public as a lamp set in a window. The child seemed quite to see in it the very lamp that had lighted her path; she suddenly found herself reflecting that it was no wonder the gentlemen were dazzled. This must have been the way mamma had first looked at Sir Claude; it brought back the lustre of the time they had outlived. It must have been the way she looked also at Mr. Perriam and Lord Eric; above all it contributed in Maisie's mind to a completer view of the Captain. Our young lady grasped this idea with a quick lifting of the heart; there was a stillness during which her mother flooded her with a wealth of support to the Captain's striking tribute. This stillness remained long enough unbroken to represent that Sir Claude too might literally be struggling again with the element that had originally upset him: so that Maisie quite hoped he