ob, stand as if listening for voices. Maisie listened, but she
heard none. All she heard presently was Sir Claude's saying with
speculation quite choked off, but so as not to be heard in the salon:
"Mrs. Beale will never go." On this he pushed open the door and she went
in with him. The salon was empty, but as an effect of their entrance the
lady he had just mentioned appeared at the door of the bedroom. "Is she
going?" he then demanded.

Mrs. Beale came forward, closing her door behind her. "I've had the most
extraordinary scene with her. She told me yesterday she'd stay."

"And my arrival has altered it?"

"Oh we took that into account!" Mrs. Beale was flushed, which was never
quite becoming to her, and her face visibly testified to the encounter
to which she alluded. Evidently, however, she had not been worsted, and
she held up her head and smiled and rubbed her hands as if in sudden
emulation of the _patronne_. "She promised she'd stay even if you should
come."

"Then why has she changed?"

"Because she's a hound. The reason she herself gives is that you've been
out too long."

Sir Claude stared. "What has that to do with it?"

"You've been out an age," Mrs. Beale continued; "I myself couldn't
imagine what had become of you. The whole morning," she exclaimed, "and
luncheon long since over!"

Sir Claude appeared indifferent to that. "Did Mrs. Wix go down with
you?" he only asked.

"Not she; she never budged!"--and Mrs. Beale's flush, to Maisie's
vision, deepened. "She moped there--she didn't so much as come out to
me; and when I sent to invite her she simply declined to appear. She
said she wanted nothing, and I went down alone. But when I came up,
fortunately a little primed"--and Mrs. Beale smiled a fine smile of
battle--"she WAS in the field!"

"And you had a big row?"

"We had a big row"--she assented with a frankness as large. "And while
you left me to that sort of thing I should like to know where you were!"
She paused for a reply, but Sir Claude merely looked at Maisie; a
movement that promptly quickened her challenge. "Where the mischief have
you been?"

"You seem to take it as hard as Mrs. Wix," Sir Claude returned.

"I take it as I choose to take it, and you don't answer my question."

He looked again at Maisie--as if for an aid to this effort; whereupon
she smiled at her stepmother and offered: "We've been everywhere."

Mrs. Beale, however, made her no response, thereby adding to a surpr