Don't stoop so--lift up your hair.
You know how I'm affected toward him," she added with dignity; "but
you must also know that I see clear."

Maisie all this time was trying hard to do likewise. "Then if she has
left him for that why shouldn't Mrs. Beale leave him?"

"Because she's not such a fool!"

"Not such a fool as mamma?"

"Precisely--if you WILL have it. Does it look like her leaving him?"
Mrs. Wix enquired. She brooded again; then she went on with more
intensity: "Do you want to know really and truly why? So that she may
be his wretchedness and his punishment."

"His punishment?"--this was more than as yet Maisie could quite accept.
"For what?"

"For everything. That's what will happen: he'll be tied to her for ever.
She won't mind in the least his hating her, and she won't hate him back.
She'll only hate US."

"Us?" the child faintly echoed.

"She'll hate YOU."

"Me? Why, I brought them together!" Maisie resentfully cried.

"You brought them together." There was a completeness in Mrs. Wix's
assent. "Yes; it was a pretty job. Sit down." She began to brush her
pupil's hair and, as she took up the mass of it with some force of
hand, went on with a sharp recall: "Your mother adored him at first--it
might have lasted. But he began too soon with Mrs. Beale. As you say,"
she pursued with a brisk application of the brush, "you brought them
together."

"I brought them together"--Maisie was ready to reaffirm it. She felt
none the less for a moment at the bottom of a hole; then she seemed to
see a way out. "But I didn't bring mamma together--" She just faltered.

"With all those gentlemen?"--Mrs. Wix pulled her up. "No; it isn't quite
so bad as that."

"I only said to the Captain"--Maisie had the quick memory of it--"that
I hoped he at least (he was awfully nice!) would love her and keep her."

"And even that wasn't much harm," threw in Mrs. Wix.

"It wasn't much good," Maisie was obliged to recognise. "She can't bear
him--not even a mite. She told me at Folkestone."

Mrs. Wix suppressed a gasp; then after a bridling instant during
which she might have appeared to deflect with difficulty from her odd
consideration of Ida's wrongs: "He was a nice sort of person for her to
talk to you about!"

"Oh I LIKE him!" Maisie promptly rejoined; and at this, with an
inarticulate sound and an inconsequence still more marked, her companion
bent over and dealt her on the cheek a rapid peck which had the apparent