Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/38

24 that she had never failed, begot in Ida Farange an ill-humor of which several persons felt the effect. She determined that Beale, at any rate, should feel it. She reflected afresh that in the study of how to be odious to him she must never give way. Nothing could incommode him more than not to get the good, for the child, of a nice female appendage who had clearly taken a fancy to her. One of the things Ida said to the appendage was that Beale's was a house in which no decent woman could consent to be seen. It was Miss Overmore herself who explained to Maisie that she had a hope of being allowed to accompany her to her father's and that this hope had been dashed by the way her mother took it. "She says if I ever do such a thing as enter his service I must never, in this house, expect to show my face again. So I've promised not to attempt to go with you. If I wait patiently till you come back here we shall certainly be together again."

Waiting patiently, and above all waiting till she should come back there, seemed to Maisie a long way round. It reminded her of all the things she had been told, first and last, that she should have if she would be