Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/379

Rh season and the hour. Mrs. Wix's requirements had drawn her in from this posture and Mrs. Wix's embrace had detained her, even though, midway in the outpouring, her confusion and sympathy had permitted, or rather had positively helped, her to disengage herself. But the casement was still wide, the spectacle, the pleasure was still there, and from her place in the room, which, with its polished floor and its panels of elegance, was lighted from without more than from within, the child could still take account of them. She appeared to watch and listen; after which she answered Mrs. Wix with a question. "If I do know—?"

"If you do condemn." The correction was made with some austerity.

It had the effect of causing Maisie to heave a vague sigh of oppression and then, after an instant and as if under cover of this ambiguity, to pass out again upon the balcony. She hung again over the rail; she felt the summer night; she dropped down into the manners of France. There was a cafe below the hotel, before which, with little chairs and tables, people sat on a space enclosed by plants in tubs; and the impression was enriched by the flash of the