Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/92

78 though with perceptible resignation, her sigh of a moment before. "Your father, darling, is a very odd person indeed." She turned with this, smiling, to Sir Claude. "But perhaps it's hardly civil for me to say that of his not objecting to have you in the house. If you knew some of the people he does have!"

Maisie knew them all, and none indeed were to be compared to Sir Claude. He laughed back at Mrs. Beale: he looked at such moments quite as Mrs. Wix, in the long stories she told her pupil, always described the lovers of her distressed beauties—"the perfect gentleman and strikingly handsome." He got up, to the child's regret, as if he were going. "Oh, I dare say we should be all right!"

Mrs. Beale once more gathered in her little charge, holding her close and looking thoughtfully over her head at their visitor. "It's so charming—for a man of your type—to have wanted her so much!"

"What do you know about my type?" Sir Claude inquired. "Whatever it may be, I dare say it deceives you. The truth about me is simply that I'm the most unappreciated of—what do you call the fellows? 'family