She had had
to mention Sir Claude, though she mentioned him as little as possible
and Beale only appeared to look quite over his head. It pieced itself
together for her that this was the mildness of general indifference, a
source of profit so great for herself personally that if the Countess
was the author of it she was prepared literally to hug the Countess. She
betrayed that eagerness by a restless question about her, to which her
father replied: "Oh she has a head on her shoulders. I'll back her to
get out of anything!" He looked at Maisie quite as if he could trace the
connexion between her enquiry and the impatience of her gratitude. "Do
you mean to say you'd really come with me?"
She felt as if he were now looking at her very hard indeed, and also as
if she had grown ever so much older. "I'll do anything in the world you
ask me, papa."
He gave again, with a laugh and with his legs apart, his proprietary
glance at his waistcoat and trousers. "That's a way, my dear, of saying
'No, thank you!' You know you don't want to go the least little mite.
You can't humbug ME!" Beale Farange laid down. "I don't want to bully
you--I never bullied you in my life; but I make you the offer, and it's
to take or to leave. Your mother will never again have any more to do
with you than if you were a kitchenmaid she had turned out for going
wrong. Therefore of course I'm your natural protector and you've a right
to get everything out of me you can. Now's your chance, you know--you
won't be half-clever if you don't.
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