nervous--he only walked to the window and looked out at the Regent's
Park. "Well, he has promised," Maisie said. "But how will papa like it?"

"His being in and out? Ah that's a question that, to be frank with you,
my dear, hardly matters. In point of fact, however, Beale greatly enjoys
the idea that Sir Claude too, poor man, has been forced to quarrel with
your mother."

Sir Claude turned round and spoke gravely and kindly. "Don't be afraid,
Maisie; you won't lose sight of me."

"Thank you so much!" Maisie was radiant. "But what I meant--don't you
know?--was what papa would say to ME."

"Oh I've been having that out with him," said Mrs. Beale. "He'll behave
well enough. You see the great difficulty is that, though he changes
every three days about everything else in the world, he has never
changed about your mother. It's a caution, the way he hates her."

Sir Claude gave a short laugh. "It certainly can't beat the way she
still hates HIM!"

"Well," Mrs. Beale went on obligingly, "nothing can take the place of
that feeling with either of them, and the best way they can think of to
show it is for each to leave you as long as possible on the hands of the
other. There's nothing, as you've seen for yourself, that makes either
so furious. It isn't, asking so little as you do, that you're much of
an expense or a trouble; it's only that you make each feel so well how
nasty the other wants to be. Therefore Beale goes on loathing your
mother too much to have any great fury left for any one else. Besides,