Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/426

412 that, and it was not wanting now. He raised his eyebrows and his arms to play at admiration; he was evidently, after all, disposed to be gay. "Got you up? I should think so! She has dressed you most beautifully. Is n't she coming?"

Maisie wondered if she had better tell. "She said not."

"Does n't she want to see a poor devil?"

She looked about, under the vibration of the way he described himself, and her eyes rested on the door of the room he had previously occupied. "Is Mrs. Beale in there?"

Sir Claude looked blankly at the same object. "I have n't the least idea!"

"You haven't seen her?"

"Not the tip of her nose."

Maisie thought; there settled on her, in the light of his beautiful smiling eyes, the faintest, purest, coldest conviction that he was not telling the truth. "She has n't welcomed you?"

"Not by a single sign."

"Then where is she?"

Sir Claude laughed; he seemed both amused and surprised at the point she made of it. "I give it up."

"Does n't she know you 've come?"