"If
you were really to go with us? He'd make a great complaint."
He seemed amused at the term she employed. "Oh I shouldn't mind a
'complaint'!"
"He'd talk to every one about it," said Maisie.
"Well, I shouldn't mind that either."
"Of course not," the child hastened to respond. "You've told me you're
not afraid of him."
"The question is are you?" said Sir Claude.
Maisie candidly considered; then she spoke resolutely. "No, not of
papa."
"But of somebody else?"
"Certainly, of lots of people."
"Of your mother first and foremost of course."
"Dear, yes; more of mamma than of--than of--"
"Than of what?" Sir Claude asked as she hesitated for a comparison.
She thought over all objects of dread. "Than of a wild elephant!" she at
last declared. "And you are too," she reminded him as he laughed.
"Oh yes, I am too."
Again she meditated. "Why then did you marry her?"
"Just because I WAS afraid."
"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.
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