Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/443

Rh he kept trying to correct and conceal it with laughs and mouthfuls and other vain familiarities. Suddenly he broke off, wiping his moustache with sharp pulls and coming back to Mrs. Beale. "Did she try to talk you over?"

"No—to me she said very little. Very little indeed," Maisie continued.

Sir Claude seemed struck with this. "She was only sweet to Mrs. Wix?"

"As sweet as sugar!" cried Maisie.

He looked amused at her comparison, but he did n't contest it; he uttered, on the contrary, in an assenting way, a little inarticulate sound. "I know what she can be. But much good may it have done her! Mrs. Wix won't come round. That 's what makes it so fearfully awkward."

Maisie knew it was fearfully awkward; she had known this now, she felt, for some time, and there was something else it more pressingly concerned her to learn. "What is it that you meant you came over to ask me?"

"Well," said Sir Claude, "I was just going to say. Let me tell you it will surprise you." She had finished breakfast now and she sat back in her chair again; she waited in silence to hear. He had pushed