Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/432

418 if she could with that light aid wait till the hour of déjeuner. His allusion to this meal gave her, in the shaded, sprinkled coolness, the scene, as she vaguely felt, of a sort of ordered, mirrored license, the haunt of those—the irregular, like herself—who went to bed or who rose too late, something to think over while she watched the white-aproned waiter perform as nimbly with plates and saucers as a certain conjurer her friend had, in London, taken her to a music-hall to see. Sir Claude had presently begun to talk again, to tell her how London had looked, and how long he had felt himself, on either side, to have been absent; all about Susan Ash too, and the amusement as well as the difficulty he had had with her; then all about his return journey and the Channel in the night and the crowd of people coming over and the way there were always too many one knew. He spoke of other matters besides, especially of what she must tell him of the occupations, while he was away, of Mrs. Wix and her pupil. Had n't they had the good time he had promised?—had he exaggerated a bit the arrangements made for their pleasure? Maisie had something—not all there was—