Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/452

438 There was but one thing Maisie wished to do, and after an instant she expressed it. "Have we got to go back to the hotel?"

"Do you want to?"

"Oh no."

"There's not the least necessity for it." He bent his eyes on his watch; his face was now very grave. "We can do anything else in the world." He looked at her again almost as if he were on the point of saying that they might for instance start off for Paris. But even while she wondered if that were not coming he had a sudden drop. "We can take a walk."

She was all ready, but he sat there as if he had still something more to say. This too, however, didn't come; so she herself spoke. "I think I should like to see Mrs. Wix first."

"Before you decide? All right—all right." He had put on his hat, but he had still to light a cigarette. He smoked a minute, with his head thrown back, looking at the ceiling; then he said: "There 's one thing to remember—I 've a right to impress it on you: we stand absolutely in the place of your parents. It's their defection, their extraordinary baseness, that has made our