Her wantonness meanwhile continued to work upon her friend, who
caught again, on the rebound, the sound of deepest provocation. "Free,
free, free? If she's as free as YOU are, my dear, she's free enough, to
be sure!"
"As I am?"--Maisie, after reflexion and despite whatever of portentous
this seemed to convey, risked a critical echo.
"Well," said Mrs. Wix, "nobody, you know, is free to commit a crime."
"A crime!" The word had come out in a way that made the child sound it
again.
"You'd commit as great a one as their own--and so should I--if we were
to condone their immorality by our presence."
Maisie waited a little; this seemed so fiercely conclusive. "Why is it
immorality?" she nevertheless presently enquired.
Her companion now turned upon her with a reproach softer because it was
somehow deeper. "You're too unspeakable! Do you know what we're talking
about?"
In the interest of ultimate calm Maisie felt that she must be above all
clear. "Certainly; about their taking advantage of their freedom."
"Well, to do what?"
"Why, to live with us."
Mrs. Wix's laugh, at this, was literally wild. "'Us?' Thank you!"
"Then to live with ME."
The words made her friend jump. "You give me up? You break with me for
ever? You turn me into the street?"
Maisie, though gasping a little, bore up under the rain of challenges.
"Those, it seems to me, are the things you do to ME."
Mrs. Wix made little of her valour. "I can promise you that, whatever
I do, I shall never let you out of my sight! You ask me why it's
immorality when you've seen with your own eyes that Sir Claude has felt
it to be so to that dire extent that, rather than make you face the
shame of it, he has for months kept away from you altogether? Is it any
more difficult to see that the first time he tries to do his duty he
washes his hands of HER--takes you straight away from her?"
Maisie turned this over, but more for apparent consideration than from
any impulse to yield too easily.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266