Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/99

Rh and with the immense bustle of her reminder that they must cull the fleeting hour. They were surrounded with subjects they must take at a rush and were perpetually getting into the attitude of triumphant attack. They had certainly no idle hours, and the child went to bed each night as from a long day's play. This had begun from the moment of their reunion—begun with all Mrs. Wix had to tell her young friend of the reasons of her ladyship's extraordinary behavior at the very first.

It took the form of her ladyship's refusal for three days to see her child—three days, during which Sir Claude made hasty, merry dashes into the schoolroom to smooth down the odd situation, to say, "She'll come round, you know; I assure you, she'll come round," and a little even to make up to Maisie for the indignity he had caused her to suffer. There had never, in the child's life, been, in all ways, such a delightful amount of reparation. It came out by his sociable admission that her ladyship had not known of his visit to her late husband's house and of his having made that person's daughter a pretext for striking up an acquaintance with the dreadful creature