Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/476

462 knowing that here at last was the moment she had had most to reckon with. But as regards her stepdaughter Mrs. Beale subdued herself to an inquiry deeply mild. "Have you made, my own love, any such condition as that?"

Somehow, now that it was there, the great moment was not so bad. What helped the child was that she knew what she wanted. All her learning and learning had made her at last learn that; so that if she waited an instant to reply it was only from the desire to be nice. Bewilderment had simply gone, or at any rate was going fast. Finally she answered: "Will you give him up? Will you?"

"Ah, leave her alone—leave her, leave her!" Sir Claude, in sudden supplication, murmured to Mrs. Beale.

Mrs. Wix at the same instant found another apostrophe. "Is n't it enough for you, madam, to have brought her to discussing your relations?"

Mrs. Beale left Sir Claude unheeded, but Mrs. Wix could make her flame. "My relations? What do you know, you hideous creature, about my relations, and what business on earth have you to speak of them? Leave the room this instant, you horrible old woman! "

"I think you had better go—you must