Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/298

284 what your father wishes. You 'll have to get used to it as I 've done—I mean to his wishing that I'm dead. At all events you see for yourself how wonderful I am to Sir Claude. He wishes me dead quite as much; and I 'm sure that if making me scenes about you could have killed me—!" It was the mark of Ida's eloquence that she started more hares than she followed, and she gave but a glance in the direction of this one; going on to say that the very proof of her treating her husband like an angel was that he had just stolen off not to be fairly shamed. She spoke as if he had retired on tiptoe as he might have withdrawn from a place of sanctity in which he was not fit to be present. "You 'll never know what I 've been through about you—never, never, never. I spare you everything, as I always have; though I dare say you know things that, if I did (I mean if I knew you knew them), would make me—well, no matter! You 're old enough at any rate to know there are a lot of things I don't say that I easily might; though it would do me good, I assure you, to have spoken my mind for once in my life. I don't speak of your father's infamous wife: that may give you a notion of the way I 'm letting you off. When