Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/463

Rh landing, out of sight of the people below, they collapsed so that they had to sink down together for support: they simply seated themselves on the uppermost step while Sir Claude grasped the hand of his stepdaughter with a pressure that at another moment would probably have made her squeal. Their books and papers were all scattered. "She thinks you 've given her up! "

"Then I must see her—I must see her!" Maisie said.

"To bid her good-bye?"

"I must see her—I must see her!" the child only repeated.

They sat a minute longer, Sir Claude with his tight grip of her hand and looking away from her, looking straight down the staircase to where, round the turn, electric bells rattled and the pleasant sea-draught blew. At last, loosening his grasp, he slowly rose, on which she did the same. They went together along the lobby; but before they reached the salon he stopped again. "If I give up Mrs. Beale—?"

"I 'll go straight out with you again and not come back till she has gone."

He seemed to wonder. "Till Mrs. Beale—?"