he wouldn't be one for his daughter. For Mrs. Beale certainly he was an
immense one--she speedily made known as much; but Mrs. Beale from this
moment presented herself to Maisie as a person to whom a great gift had
come. The great gift was just for handling complications. Maisie felt
how little she made of them when, after she had dropped to Sir Claude
some recall of a previous meeting, he made answer, with a sound of
consternation and yet an air of relief, that he had denied to their
companion their having, since the day he came for her, seen each other
till that moment.

Mrs. Beale could but vaguely pity it. "Why did you do anything so
silly?"

"To protect your reputation."

"From Maisie?" Mrs. Beale was much amused. "My reputation with Maisie is
too good to suffer."

"But you believed me, you rascal, didn't you?" Sir Claude asked of the
child.

She looked at him; she smiled. "Her reputation did suffer. I discovered
you had been here."

He was not too chagrined to laugh. "The way, my dear, you talk of that
sort of thing!"

"How should she talk," Mrs. Beale wanted to know, "after all this
wretched time with her mother?"