Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/306

292 one of those sudden pleasantries with which, to the delight of his stepdaughter, his native animation abounded. "Will Miss Farange do me the honor to accept my arm?"

There was nothing in all her days that Miss Farange had accepted with such bliss—a bright, rich element that floated them together to their feast; before they reached which, however, she uttered, in the spirit of a glad young lady taken in to her first dinner, a sociable word that made him stop short. "She goes to South Africa."

"To South Africa?" His face for a moment seemed to swing for a jump; the next it took its spring into the extreme of hilarity. "Is that what she said?"

"Oh, yes, quite distinctly. For the climate."

Sir Claude was now looking at a young woman with black hair, a red frock and a tiny terrier tucked under her elbow: she swept past them on her way to the diningroom, leaving an impression of a strong scent which mingled, amid the clatter of the place, with the hot aroma of food. He had become a little graver; he still stopped to talk. "I see—I see." Other people