Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/386

372, "So do I!" But before that moment passed something took place that brought other words to her lips; nothing more, very possibly, than the closer consciousness, in her hand, of the significance of Mrs. Wix's. Their hands remained linked in unutterable sign of their union, and what Maisie at last said was, simply and serenely: "Oh, I know!"

Their hands were so linked and their union was so confirmed that it took the far, deep note of a bell, borne to them on the summer air, to call them back to a sense of hours and proprieties. They had touched bottom and melted together, but they gave a start at last; the bell was the voice of the inn, and the inn was the image of luncheon. They should be late for it; they got up; and their quickened step, on the return, had something of the swing of confidence. When they reached the hotel the table d'hôte had begun: this was clear from the threshold, clear from the absence, in the hall and on the stairs, of the "personnel," as Mrs. Wix said—she had picked that up—all collected in the dining-room. They mounted to their apartments for a brush before the glass, and it was Maisie who, in passing and from a