They had certainly no idle hours, and the
child went to bed each night as tired as from a long day's play. This
had begun from the moment of their reunion, begun with all Mrs. Wix had
to tell her young friend of the reasons of her ladyship's extraordinary
behaviour at the very first.
It took the form of her ladyship's refusal for three days to see her
little girl--three days during which Sir Claude made hasty merry dashes
into the schoolroom to smooth down the odd situation, to say "She'll
come round, you know; I assure you she'll come round," and a little
even to compensate Maisie for the indignity he had caused her to suffer.
There had never in the child's life been, in all ways, such a delightful
amount of reparation. It came out by his sociable admission that her
ladyship had not known of his visit to her late husband's house and
of his having made that person's daughter a pretext for striking up
an acquaintance with the dreadful creature installed there. Heaven
knew she wanted her child back and had made every plan of her own for
removing her; what she couldn't for the present at least forgive any
one concerned was such an officious underhand way of bringing about the
transfer. Maisie carried more of the weight of this resentment than even
Mrs. Wix's confidential ingenuity could lighten for her, especially as
Sir Claude himself was not at all ingenious, though indeed on the other
hand he was not at all crushed. He was amused and intermittent and at
moments most startling; he impressed on his young companion, with a
frankness that agitated her much more than he seemed to guess, that he
depended on her not letting her mother, when she should see her, get
anything out of her about anything Mrs.
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