Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/450

436 How could she have less? So why are you so sure she 'll go?"

"Surely you heard why—you heard her come out three nights ago? How can she do anything but go—after what she then said? I 've done what she warned me of—she was absolutely right. So here we are. Her liking Mrs. Beale, as you call it, now, is a motive sufficient with other things to make her, for your sake, stay on without me; it 's not a motive sufficient to make her, even for yours, stay on with me—swallow, in short, what she can't swallow. And when you say she 's as fond of me as you are I think I can, if that 's the case, challenge you a little on it. Would you, only with those two, stay on without me?" The' waiter came back with the change, and that gave her, under this appeal, a moment's respite. But when he had retreated again with the "tip" gathered in with graceful thanks, on a subtle hint from Sir Claude's forefinger, the latter while he pocketed the money followed the appeal up. "Would you let her make you live with Mrs. Beale?"

"Without you? Never," Maisie then answered. "Never," she said again.

It made him quite triumph, and she was