Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/343

Rh She hung fire but an instant. "Free to live with you?"

"Free not to live, not to pretend to live, with her husband."

"Ah, they 're mighty different things!"—a truth as to which her earnestness could now, with a fine, inconsequent look, invite the participation of the child.

Before Maisie could commit herself, however, the ground was occupied by Sir Claude, who, as he stood before their visitor with an expression half rueful, half persuasive, rubbed his hand sharply up and down the back of his head. "Then why the deuce do you grant so—do you, I may even say, rejoice so—that, by the desertion of my precious partner, I'm free?"

Mrs. Wix met this challenge first with silence, then with a demonstration the most extraordinary, the most unexpected. Maisie could scarcely believe her eyes as she saw the good lady, with whom she had never associated the faintest form of coquetry, actually, after an upward grimace, give Sir Claude a great giggling, insinuating, naughty slap. "You wretch—you know why!" And she turned away. The face that, with this movement, she left him to present to Maisie