It was Miss Overmore's private conviction, and a part of the
same communication, that if Mr. Farange's daughter would only show a
really marked preference she would be backed up by "public opinion" in
holding on to him. Poor Maisie could scarcely grasp that incentive, but
she could surrender herself to the day. She had conceived her first
passion, and the object of it was her governess. It hadn't been put to
her, and she couldn't, or at any rate she didn't, put it to herself,
that she liked Miss Overmore better than she liked papa; but it would
have sustained her under such an imputation to feel herself able
to reply that papa too liked Miss Overmore exactly as much. He had
particularly told her so. Besides she could easily see it.
IV
All this led her on, but it brought on her fate as well, the day when
her mother would be at the door in the carriage in which Maisie now rode
on no occasions but these. There was no question at present of Miss
Overmore's going back with her: it was universally recognised that her
quarrel with Mrs. Farange was much too acute. The child felt it from
the first; there was no hugging nor exclaiming as that lady drove her
away--there was only a frightening silence, unenlivened even by the
invidious enquiries of former years, which culminated, according to its
stern nature, in a still more frightening old woman, a figure awaiting
her on the very doorstep. "You're to be under this lady's care," said
her mother.
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