Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/35

Rh homely, but her movement, like all her movements, graceful.

"Why, papa."

"That he 'lies'—?"

"That's what mamma says I am to tell him—that he lies and he knows he lies." Miss Overmore turned very red, though she laughed out till her head fell back; then she pricked again at her muffled hand so hard that Maisie wondered how she could bear it. "Am I to tell him?" the child went on. It was then that her companion addressed her in the unmistakable language of a pair of eyes of deep dark gray. "I can't say no," they replied as distinctly as possible. "I can't say no, because I'm afraid of your mamma, don't you see? Yet how can I say yes after your papa has been so kind to me, talking to me so long the other day, smiling and flashing his beautiful teeth at me the time we met him in the Park, the time when, rejoicing at the sight of us, he left the gentleman he was with and turned and walked with us, stayed with us for half an hour?" Somehow, in the light of Miss Overmore's lovely eyes, that incident came back to Maisie with a charm it had not had at the time, and this in spite of the fact that after