Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/351

Rh before you 're up; and I shall moreover have dealt directly and most effectively, I assure you, with the haughty but not quite hopeless Miss Ash." He turned to his stepdaughter as if at once to take leave of her and give her a sign of how, through all tension and friction, they were still united in such a way that she at least needn't worry. "Maisie, boy!"—he opened his arms to her. With her culpable lightness she flew into them and, while he kissed her, chose the soft method of silence to promise him the silence that, after battles of talk, was the best balm she could offer his wounds. They held each other long enough to reaffirm intensely their vows; after which they were almost forced apart by Mrs. Wix's jumping to her feet.

Her jump, either with a quick return or with a final lapse of courage, was also to supplication almost abject. "I beseech you not to take a step so miserable and so fatal. I know her but too well, even if you jeer at me for saying it; little as I 've seen her I know her, I know her. I know what she 'll do—I see it as I stand here. Since you are afraid of her, it 's the mercy of heaven; don't, for God's sake, be afraid to show it, to profit by it and to arrive at the very safety