"Then whose house is it?"

"It's your father's. They've moved here."

She looked about: she had known Mr. Farange in four or five houses, and
there was nothing astonishing in this except that it was the nicest
place yet. "But I shall see Mrs. Beale?"

"It's to see her that I brought you."

She stared, very white, and, with her hand on his arm, though they had
stopped, kept him sitting in the cab. "To leave me, do you mean?"

He could scarce bring it out. "It's not for me to say if you CAN stay.
We must look into it."

"But if I do I shall see papa?"

"Oh some time or other, no doubt." Then Sir Claude went on: "Have you
really so very great a dread of that?"

Maisie glanced away over the apron of the cab--gazed a minute at the
green expanse of the Regent's Park and, at this moment colouring to the
roots of her hair, felt the full, hot rush of an emotion more mature
than any she had yet known. It consisted of an odd unexpected shame at
placing in an inferior light, to so perfect a gentleman and so charming
a person as Sir Claude, so very near a relative as Mr. Farange. She
remembered, however, her friend's telling her that no one was seriously
afraid of her father, and she turned round with a small toss of her
head. "Oh I dare say I can manage him!"