the man naturally accustomed to that argument, the
man who wanted thoroughly to be reasonable, but who, if really he had to
mind so many things, would be always impossibly hampered. What it came
to indeed was that he understood quite perfectly. If Mrs. Wix clung it
was all the more reason for shaking Mrs. Wix off.

This vision of what she had brought him to occupied our young lady
while, to ask what he owed, he called the waiter and put down a gold
piece that the man carried off for change. Sir Claude looked after him,
then went on: "How could a woman have less to reproach a fellow with? I
mean as regards herself."

Maisie entertained the question. "Yes. How COULD she have less? So why
are you so sure she'll go?"

"Surely you heard why--you heard her come out three nights ago? How can
she do anything but go--after what she then said? I've done what she
warned me of--she was absolutely right. So here we are. Her liking Mrs.
Beale, as you call it now, is a motive sufficient, with other things,
to make her, for your sake, stay on without me; it's not a motive
sufficient to make her, even for yours, stay on WITH me--swallow, don't
you see? what she can't swallow. And when you say she's as fond of me as
you are I think I can, if that's the case, challenge you a little on it.
Would YOU, only with those two, stay on without me?"

The waiter came back with the change, and that gave her, under this
appeal, a moment's respite. But when he had retreated again with the
"tip" gathered in with graceful thanks on a subtle hint from Sir
Claude's forefinger, the latter, while pocketing the money, followed
the appeal up. "Would you let her make you live with Mrs. Beale?"

"Without you? Never," Maisie then answered. "Never," she said again.

It made him quite triumph, and she was indeed herself shaken by the mere
sound of it. "So you see you're not, like her," he exclaimed, "so ready
to give me away!" Then he came back to his original question. "CAN you
choose? I mean can you settle it by a word yourself? Will you stay on
with us without her?" Now in truth she felt the coldness of her terror,
and it seemed to her that suddenly she knew, as she knew it about Sir
Claude, what she was afraid of. She was afraid of herself. She looked at
him in such a way that it brought, she could see, wonder into his face,
a wonder held in check, however, by his frank pretension to play fair
with her, not to use advantages, not to hurry nor hustle her--