"Why moral sense."
They spoke as if you might have two, but Mrs. Wix looked as if it were
not altogether a happy thought, and Maisie didn't see how even an
affirmative from her own lips would clear up what had become most of a
mystery. It was to this larger puzzle she sprang pretty straight. "IS
she my mother now?"
It was a point as to which an horrific glimpse of the responsibility of
an opinion appeared to affect Mrs. Wix like a blow in the stomach. She
had evidently never thought of it; but she could think and rebound. "If
she is, he's equally your father."