I'm sure _I_ don't know!"--and she seemed to
repeat, though with perceptible resignation, her plaint of a moment
before. "Your father, darling, is a very odd person indeed." She turned
with this, smiling, to Sir Claude. "But perhaps it's hardly civil for me
to say that of his not objecting to have YOU in the house. If you knew
some of the people he does have!"
Maisie knew them all, and none indeed were to be compared to Sir Claude.
He laughed back at Mrs. Beale; he looked at such moments quite as Mrs.
Wix, in the long stories she told her pupil, always described the lovers
of her distressed beauties--"the perfect gentleman and strikingly
handsome." He got up, to the child's regret, as if he were going. "Oh I
dare say we should be all right!"
Mrs. Beale once more gathered in her little charge, holding her close
and looking thoughtfully over her head at their visitor. "It's so
charming--for a man of your type--to have wanted her so much!"
"What do you know about my type?" Sir Claude laughed. "Whatever it may
be I dare say it deceives you. The truth about me is simply that I'm the
most unappreciated of--what do you call the fellows?--'family-men.' Yes,
I'm a family-man; upon my honour I am!"
"Then why on earth," cried Mrs. Beale, "didn't you marry a
family-woman?"
Sir Claude looked at her hard. "YOU know who one marries, I think.
Besides, there ARE no family-women--hanged if there are! None of them
want any children--hanged if they do!"
His account of the matter was most interesting, and Maisie, as if it
were of bad omen for her, stared at the picture in some dismay.
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