Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/89

Rh his being there. "We've been married, my dear child, three months, and my interest in you is a consequence, don't you know? of my great affection for your mother. In coming here it's of course for your mother I'm acting."

"Oh, I know," Maisie said, with all the candor of her competence. "She can't come herself—except just to the door." Then as she thought afresh: "Can't she come even to the door now?"

"There you are!" Mrs. Beale explained to Sir Claude. She spoke as if his dilemma were ludicrous.

His kind face, in a hesitation, seemed to recognize it; but he answered the child with a frank smile. "No—not very well."

"Because she has married you?"

He promptly accepted this reason. "Well, that has a good deal to do with it."

He was so delightful to talk to that Maisie pursued the subject. "But papa—he has married Miss Overmore."

"Yes, and you'll see that he won't come for you at your mother's," that lady interposed.

"Ah, but that won't be for a long time," Maisie hastened to respond.