"
Sir Claude, for once in a way, was disconcerted. "The old cat! She never
told me. Then you thought I had lied?" he demanded of Maisie.
She was flurried by the term with which he had qualified her gentle
friend, but she took the occasion for one to which she must in every
manner lend herself. "Oh I didn't mind! But Mrs. Wix did," she added
with an intention benevolent to her governess.
Her intention was not very effective as regards Mrs. Beale. "Mrs. Wix is
too idiotic!" that lady declared.
"But to you, of all people," Sir Claude asked, "what had she to say?"
"Why that, like Mrs. Micawber--whom she must, I think, rather
resemble--she will never, never, never desert Miss Farange."
"Oh I'll make that all right!" Sir Claude cheerfully returned.
"I'm sure I hope so, my dear man," said Mrs. Beale, while Maisie
wondered just how he would proceed. Before she had time to ask Mrs.
Beale continued: "That's not all she came to do, if you please. But
you'll never guess the rest."
"Shall _I_ guess it?" Maisie quavered.
Mrs. Beale was again amused. "Why you're just the person! It must be
quite the sort of thing you've heard at your awful mother's. Have you
never seen women there crying to her to 'spare' the men they love?"
Maisie, wondering, tried to remember; but Sir Claude was freshly
diverted. "Oh they don't trouble about Ida! Mrs. Wix cried to you to
spare ME?"
"She regularly went down on her knees to me."
"The darling old dear!" the young man exclaimed.
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