But now
your eyes are open, and I take you!"
"No you don't!" and Mrs. Beale made, with a great fierce jump, a wild
snatch at her stepdaughter. She caught her by the arm and, completing an
instinctive movement, whirled her round in a further leap to the door,
which had been closed by Sir Claude the instant their voices had risen.
She fell back against it and, even while denouncing and waving off Mrs.
Wix, kept it closed in an incoherence of passion. "You don't take her,
but you bundle yourself: she stays with her own people and she's rid of
you! I never heard anything so monstrous!" Sir Claude had rescued Maisie
and kept hold of her; he held her in front of him, resting his hands
very lightly on her shoulders and facing the loud adversaries. Mrs.
Beale's flush had dropped; she had turned pale with a splendid wrath.
She kept protesting and dismissing Mrs. Wix; she glued her back to the
door to prevent Maisie's flight; she drove out Mrs. Wix by the window or
the chimney. "You're a nice one--'discussing relations'--with your talk
of our 'connexion' and your insults! What in the world's our connexion
but the love of the child who's our duty and our life and who holds us
together as closely as she originally brought us?"
"I know, I know!" Maisie said with a burst of eagerness. "I did bring
you."
The strangest of laughs escaped from Sir Claude. "You did bring us--you
did!" His hands went up and down gently on her shoulders.
Mrs. Wix so dominated the situation that she had something sharp for
every one.
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