Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/299

Rh I say 'you' I mean your precious friends and backers. If you don't do justice to my forbearing, out of delicacy, to mention, just as a last word, about your stepfather, a little fact or two—of a kind that really I should only have to mention to shine, myself, in comparison and after every calumny, like pure gold: if you don't do me that justice you 'll never do me justice at all!"

Maisie's desire to show what justice she did her had by this time become so intense as to have brought with it an inspiration. The great effect of their encounter had been to confirm her sense of being launched with Sir Claude, to make it rich and full beyond anything she had dreamed, and everything now conspired to suggest that a single soft touch of her small hand would complete the good work and set her ladyship so promptly and majestically afloat as to leave the great sea-way clear for the morrow. This was the more the case as her hand had for some moments been rendered free by a marked manœuvre of both of her mother's. One of these capricious members had fumbled with visible impatience in some backward depth of drapery, and had presently reappeared with a small object in its grasp. The act had