He demurred. "Oh no. She has written to me," he presently subjoined.
"SHE'S not afraid of your father either. No one at all is--really."
Then he went on while Maisie's little mind, with its filial spring
too relaxed from of old for a pang at this want of parental majesty,
speculated on the vague relation between Mrs. Beale's courage and the
question, for Mrs. Wix and herself, of a neat lodging with their friend.
"She wouldn't care a bit if Mr. Farange should make a row."
"Do you mean about you and me and Mrs. Wix? Why should she care? It
wouldn't hurt HER."
Sir Claude, with his legs out and his hand diving into his
trousers-pocket, threw back his head with a laugh just perceptibly
tempered, as she thought, by a sigh. "My dear stepchild, you're
delightful! Look here, we must pay. You've had five buns?"
"How CAN you?" Maisie demanded, crimson under the eye of the young woman
who had stepped to their board. "I've had three."
Shortly after this Mrs. Wix looked so ill that it was to be feared her
ladyship had treated her to some unexampled passage. Maisie asked if
anything worse than usual had occurred; whereupon the poor woman brought
out with infinite gloom: "He has been seeing Mrs. Beale."
"Sir Claude?" The child remembered what he had said. "Oh no--not SEEING
her!"
"I beg your pardon. I absolutely know it." Mrs. Wix was as positive as
she was dismal.
Maisie nevertheless ventured to challenge her. "And how, please, do you
know it?"