l about it." Then on her friend's showing such blankness
as was compatible with such a flush she pursued: "She does want me to
have you?"

Mrs. Wix showed a final hesitation, which, however, while Sir Claude
drummed on the window-pane, she presently surmounted. It came to Maisie
that in spite of his drumming and of his not turning round he was really
so much interested as to leave himself in a manner in her hands; which
somehow suddenly seemed to her a greater proof than he could have given
by interfering. "She wants me to have YOU!" Mrs. Wix declared.

Maisie answered this bang at Sir Claude. "Then that's nice for all of
us."

Of course it was, his continued silence sufficiently admitted while
Mrs. Wix rose from her chair and, as if to take more of a stand, placed
herself, not without majesty, before the fire. The incongruity of her
smartness, the circumference of her stiff frock, presented her as really
more ready for Paris than any of them. She also gazed hard at Sir
Claude's back. "Your wife was different from anything she had ever shown
me. She recognises certain proprieties."

"Which? Do you happen to remember?" Sir Claude asked.

Mrs. Wix's reply was prompt. "The importance for Maisie of a
gentlewoman, of some one who's not--well, so bad! She objects to a mere
maid, and I don't in the least mind telling you what she wants me to
do." One thing was clear--Mrs. Wix was now bold enough for anything.
"She wants me to persuade you to get rid of the person from Mrs.
Beale's."

Maisie waited for Sir Claude to pronounce on this; then she could only
understand that he on his side waited, and she felt particularly full of
common sense as she met her responsibility. "Oh I don't want Susan with
YOU!" she said to Mrs. Wix.

Sir Claude, always from the window, approved. "That's quite simple. I'll
take her back."

Mrs. Wix gave a positive jump; Maisie caught her look of alarm. "'Take'
her? You don't mean to go over on purpose?"

Sir Claude said nothing for a moment; after which, "Why shouldn't I
leave you here?" he enquired.

Maisie, at this, sprang up. "Oh do, oh do, oh do!" The next moment she
was interlaced with Mrs. Wix, and the two, on the hearth-rug, their eyes
in each other's eyes, considered the plan with intensity. Then Maisie
felt the difference of what they saw in it.

"She can surely go back alone: why should you put yourself out?" Mrs.
Wix demanded.

"Oh she's an idiot--she's incapable. If anything s