d gone.

"That she won't go?"

"Well--everything! Well, well, well!" But he pulled himself together;
he began again to eat. "I came back to ask you something. That's what
I came back for."

"I know what you want to ask me," Maisie said.

"Are you very sure?"

"I'm ALMOST very."

"Well then risk it. You mustn't make ME risk everything."

She was struck with the force of this. "You want to know if I should be
happy with THEM."

"With those two ladies only? No, no, old man: _vous n'y etes pas_. So
now--there!" Sir Claude laughed.

"Well then what is it?"

The next minute, instead of telling her what it was, he laid his hand
across the table on her own and held her as if under the prompting of a
thought. "Mrs. Wix would stay with HER?"

"Without you? Oh yes--now."

"On account, as you just intimated, of Mrs. Beale's changed manner?"

Maisie, with her sense of responsibility, weighed both Mrs. Beale's
changed manner and Mrs. Wix's human weakness. "I think she talked her
round."

Sir Claude thought a moment. "Ah poor dear!"

"Do you mean Mrs. Beale?"

"Oh no--Mrs. Wix."

"She likes being talked round--treated like any one else. Oh she likes
great politeness," Maisie expatiated. "It affects her very much."

Sir Claude, to her surprise, demurred a little to this. "Very much--up
to a certain point."

"Oh up to any point!" Maisie returned with emphasis.

"Well, haven't I been polite to her?"

"Lovely--and she perfectly worships you."

"Then, my dear child, why can't she let me alone?"--this time Sir
Claude unmistakeably blushed. Before Maisie, however, could answer his
question, which would indeed have taken her long, he went on in another
tone: "Mrs. Beale thinks she has probably quite broken her down. But she
hasn't."

Though he spoke as if he were sure, Maisie was strong in the impression
she had just uttered and that she now again produced. "She has talked
her round."

"Ah yes; round to herself, but not round to me."

Oh she couldn't bear to hear him say that! "To you? Don't you really
believe how she loves you?"

Sir Claude examined his belief. "Of course I know she's wonderful."

"She's just every bit as fond of you as _I_ am," said Maisie. "She told
me so yesterday."

"Ah then," he promptly exclaimed, "she HAS tried to affect you! I don't
love HER, don't you see? I do her perfect justice," he pursued, "but I
mean I don't love her as I do you, and I'm sure you wouldn't seriously
expec