Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/347

Rh he had made. Whether or no he judged it adequate he subjoined after a moment: "And you 'll oblige me, above all, by not making a fuss."

Maisie could only answer for the impression on herself, though indeed from the heart even of Mrs. Wix's rigor there floated, to her sense, a faint fragrance of depraved concession. Maisie had her dumb word for the show such a speech could make, for the exquisite charm it could take from his exquisite sincerity; and before she could do anything but blink at excess of light she heard this very word sound on Mrs. Wix's lips, just as if the poor lady had guessed it and wished, snatching it from her, to blight it like a crumpled flower. "You 're dreadful, you 're terrible, for you know but too well that it 's not a small thing to me that you should address me in a fashion that 's princely!" Princely was what he stood there and looked and sounded; that was what Maisie, for the occasion, found herself reduced to simple worship of him for being. Yet, strange to say too, as Mrs. Wix went on, an echo rang within her that matched the echo she had herself just produced. "How much you must want to see her, to say such things as