Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/436

422 it made her waver and wonder, while her companion's eyes remained bent. "Nothing," she rejoined at last.

He looked up in surprise. "Nothing?"

"Nothing," Maisie repeated; on which an interruption descended in the form of a tray bearing the preparations for their breakfast.

These preparations were as amusing as everything else; the waiter poured their coffee from a vessel like a watering-pot and then made it froth with the curved stream of hot milk that dropped from the height of his raised arm; but the two looked across at each other, through the whole play of French pleasantness, with a gravity that had now ceased to dissemble. Sir Claude sent the waiter off again for something and then took up her answer. "Has n't she tried to affect you?"

Face to face with him thus it seemed to Maisie that she had tried so little as to be scarce worth mentioning; again therefore, an instant, she shut herself up. Presently she found her middle course. "Mrs. Beale likes her now; and there 's one thing I 've found out—a great thing. Mrs. Wix enjoys her being so kind. She was tremendously kind all day yesterday."