verything must really
be held to be at an end between her stepmother and herself. This
conversation had occurred in consequence of his one day popping into the
schoolroom and finding Maisie alone.

X

He was smoking a cigarette and he stood before the fire and looked
at the meagre appointments of the room in a way that made her rather
ashamed of them. Then before (on the subject of Mrs. Beale) he let her
"draw" him--that was another of his words; it was astonishing how many
she gathered in--he remarked that really mamma kept them rather low on
the question of decorations. Mrs. Wix had put up a Japanese fan and two
rather grim texts; she had wished they were gayer, but they were all she
happened to have. Without Sir Claude's photograph, however, the place
would have been, as he said, as dull as a cold dinner. He had said
as well that there were all sorts of things they ought to have; yet
governess and pupil, it had to be admitted, were still divided between
discussing the places where any sort of thing would look best if any
sort of thing should ever come and acknowledging that mutability in the
child's career which was naturally unfavourable to accumulation. She
stayed long enough only to miss things, not half long enough to deserve
them. The way Sir Claude looked about the schoolroom had made her feel
with humility as if it were not very different from the shabby attic in
which she had visited Susan Ash. Then he had said in abrupt reference to
Mrs. Beale: "Do you think she really cares for you?"

"Oh awfully!" Maisie had replied.

"But, I mean, does she love you for yourself, as they call it, don't you
know? Is she as fond of you, now, as Mrs. Wix?"

The child turned it over. "Oh I'm not every bit Mrs. Beale has!"

Sir Claude seemed much amused at this. "No; you're not every bit she
has!"

He laughed for some moments, but that was an old story to Maisie, who
was not too much disconcerted to go on: "But she'll never give me up."

"Well, I won't either, old boy: so that's not so wonderful, and she's
not the only one. But if she's so fond of you, why doesn't she write to
you?"

"Oh on account of mamma." This was rudimentary, and she was almost
surprised at the simplicity of Sir Claude's question.

"I see--that's quite right," he answered. "She might get at you--there
are all sorts of ways. But of course there's Mrs. Wix."

"There's Mrs. Wix," Maisie lucidly concurred. "Mrs. Wix can't abide
her."

S