"Even when she loved you?"

"That made her the more alarming."

For Maisie herself, though her companion seemed to find it droll, this
opened up depths of gravity. "More alarming than she is now?"

"Well, in a different way. Fear, unfortunately, is a very big thing, and
there's a great variety of kinds."

She took this in with complete intelligence. "Then I think I've got them
all."

"You?" her friend cried. "Nonsense! You're thoroughly 'game.'"

"I'm awfully afraid of Mrs. Beale," Maisie objected.

He raised his smooth brows. "That charming woman?"

"Well," she answered, "you can't understand it because you're not in the
same state."

She had been going on with a luminous "But" when, across the table, he
laid his hand on her arm. "I CAN understand it," he confessed. "I AM in
the same state."

"Oh but she likes you so!" Maisie promptly pleaded.

Sir Claude literally coloured. "That has something to do with it."