public nudges, which quite bruised her, and for all the lessons that, in
the dead schoolroom, where at times she was almost afraid to stay alone,
she was bored with not having. It was as if he had told her on the spot
that he belonged to her, so that she could already show him off and see
the effect he produced. No, nothing else that was most beautiful ever
belonging to her could kindle that particular joy--not Mrs. Beale at
that very moment, not papa when he was gay, nor mamma when she was
dressed, nor Lisette when she was new. The joy almost overflowed
in tears when he laid his hand on her and drew her to him, telling
her, with a smile of which the promise was as bright as that of a
Christmas-tree, that he knew her ever so well by her mother, but had
come to see her now so that he might know her for himself. She could
see that his view of this kind of knowledge was to make her come away
with him, and, further, that it was just what he was there for and had
already been some time: arranging it with Mrs. Beale and getting on with
that lady in a manner evidently not at all affected by her having on the
arrival of his portrait thought of him so ill. They had grown almost
intimate--or had the air of it--over their discussion; and it was still
further conveyed to Maisie that Mrs. Beale had made no secret, and would
make yet less of one, of all that it cost to let her go. "You seem so
tremendously eager," she said to the child, "that I hope you're at least
clear about Sir Claude's relation to you. It doesn't appear to occur to
him to give you the necessary reassurance."

Maisie, a trifle mystified, turned quickly to her new friend. "Why it's
of course that you're MARRIED to her, isn't it?"

Her anxious emphasis started them off, as she had learned to call it;
this was the echo she infallibly and now quite resignedly produced;
moreover Sir Claude's laughter was an indistinguishable part of the