Ida gave a sound of indulgent mockery. "I like your scare. I know your
game. I didn't see the person I risked seeing, but I had been ready
to take my chance of her." She addressed herself to Maisie; she had
encircled her more closely. "I asked for YOU, my dear, but I saw no one
but a dirty parlourmaid. She was red in the face with the great things
that, as she told me, had just happened in the absence of her mistress;
and she luckily had the sense to have made out the place to which Sir
Claude had come to take you. If he hadn't given a false scent I should
find you here: that was the supposition on which I've proceeded." Ida
had never been so explicit about proceeding or supposing, and Maisie,
drinking this in, noted too how Sir Claude shared her fine impression of
it. "I wanted to see you," his wife continued, "and now you can judge of
the trouble I've taken. I had everything to do in town to-day, but I
managed to get off."
Maisie and her companion, for a moment, did justice to this achievement;
but Maisie was the first to express it. "I'm glad you wanted to see me,
mamma." Then after a concentration more deep and with a plunge more
brave: "A little more and you'd have been too late." It stuck in her
throat, but she brought it out: "We're going to France."
Ida was magnificent; Ida kissed her on the forehead. "That's just what I
thought likely; it made me decide to run down. I fancied that in spite
of your scramble you'd wait to cross, and it added to the reason I have
for seeing you."
Maisie wondered intensely what the reason could be, but she knew ever so
much better than to ask. She was slightly surprised indeed to perceive
that Sir Claude didn't, and to hear him immediately enquire: "What in
the name of goodness can you have to say to her?"
His tone was not exactly rude, but it was impatient enough to make his
wife's response a fresh specimen of the new softness. "That, my dear
man, is all my own business."
"Do you mean," Sir Claude asked, "that you wish me to leave you with
her?"
"Yes, if you'll be so good; that's the extraordinary request I take the
liberty of making." Her ladyship had dropped to a mildness of irony by
which, for a moment, poor Maisie was mystified and charmed, puzzled
with a glimpse of something that in all the years had at intervals
peeped out. Ida smiled at Sir Claude with the strange air she had on
such occasions of defying an interlocutor to keep it up as long; her
huge eyes, her red lips, the intense marks in her face formed an
_éclairage_ as distinct and public as a lamp set in a window. The
child seemed quite to see in it the very beacon that had lighted her
path; she suddenly found herself reflecting that it was no wonder the
gentlemen were guided. This must have been the way mamma had first
looked at Sir Claude; it brought back the lustre of the time they had
outlived. It must have been the way she looked also at Mr. Perriam and
Lord Eric; above all it contributed in Maisie's mind to a completer
view of that satisfied state of the Captain. Our young lady grasped
this idea with a quick lifting of the heart; there was a stillness
during which her mother flooded her with a wealth of support to the
Captain's striking tribute. This stillness remained long enough
unbroken to represent that Sir Claude too might but be gasping again
under the spell originally strong for him; so that Maisie quite hoped
he would at least say something to show a recognition of how charming
she could be.