Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/378

364 now what would any one say—I mean any one but them—if they were to hear the way I go on? I 've had to keep up with you, haven't I?—and therefore what could I do less than look to you to keep up with me? But it 's not them that are the worst—by which I mean to say it 's not him: it 's your dreadfully base papa and the one person in the world whom he could have found, I do believe—and she's not the Countess, duck!—wickeder than himself. While they were about it, at any rate, since they were ruining you, they might have done it so as to spare an honest woman. Then I should n't have had to do—whatever it is that 's the worst: throw up at you the badness you have n't taken in, or find my advantage in the vileness you have! What I did lose patience at this morning was at how it was without your seeming to condemn—for you didn't, you remember!—you yet did seem to know. Thank God in his mercy, at last, if you do!"

The night, this time, was warm, and one of the windows stood open to the small balcony, over the rail of which, on coming up from dinner, Maisie had hung a long time in the enjoyment of the chatter, the lights, the life of the quay made brilliant by the