She took them out with her promptly to walk
and to drive, and even--towards night--sketched a plan for carrying them
to the Etablissement, where, for only a franc apiece, they should listen
to a concert of celebrities. It reminded Maisie, the plan, of the
side-shows at Earl's Court, and the franc sounded brighter than the
shillings which had at that time failed; yet this too, like the other,
was a frustrated hope: the francs failed like the shillings and the
side-shows had set an example to the concert. The Etablissement in short
melted away, and it was little wonder that a lady who from the moment of
her arrival had been so gallantly in the breach should confess herself
it last done up. Maisie could appreciate her fatigue; the day had not
passed without such an observer's discovering that she was excited and
even mentally comparing her state to that of the breakers after a gale.
It had blown hard in London, and she would take time to go down. It was
of the condition known to the child by report as that of talking against
time that her emphasis, her spirit, her humour, which had never dropped,
now gave the impression.
She too was delighted with foreign manners; but her daughter's
opportunities of explaining them to her were unexpectedly forestalled
by her own tone of large acquaintance with them. One of the things that
nipped in the bud all response to her volubility was Maisie's surprised
retreat before the fact that Continental life was what she had been
almost brought up on.
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