I can bear what I suffer—I can't bear what you go through."

"We're doing a good deal for you, you know, young woman," Sir Claude went on to Maisie with the same gravity.

She coloured with a sense of obligation and the eagerness of her desire it should be remarked how little was lost on her. "Oh I know!"

"Then you must keep us all right!" This time he laughed.

"How you talk to her!" cried Mrs. Beale.

"No worse than you!" he gaily answered.

"Handsome is that handsome does!" she returned in the same spirit. "You can take off your things," she went on, releasing Maisie.

The child, on her feet, was all emotion. "Then I'm just to stop—this way?"

"It will do as well as any other. Sir Claude, to-morrow, will have your things brought."

"I'll bring them myself. Upon my word I'll see them packed!" Sir Claude promised. "Come here and unbutton."

He had beckoned his young companion to where he sat, and he helped to disengage her from her coverings while Mrs. Beale, from a little distance, smiled at the hand he displayed. "There's a stepfather for you! I'm bound to say, you know, that he makes up for the want of other people."

"He makes up for the want of a nurse!" Sir Claude laughed. "Don't you remember I told you so the very first time?"

"Remember? It was exactly what made me think so well of you!"

"Nothing would induce me," the young man said to Maisie, "to tell you what made me think so well of her." Having divested the child he kissed her gently and gave her a little pat to make her stand off. The pat was accompanied with a vague sigh in which his gravity of a moment before came back. "All the same, if you hadn't had the fatal gift of beauty—"

"Well, what?" Maisie asked, wondering why he paused. It was the first time she had heard of her beauty.

"Why, we shouldn't all be thinking so well of each other!"

"He isn't speaking of personal loveliness—you've not that vulgar beauty, my dear, at all," Mrs. Beale explained. "He's just talking of plain dull charm of character."

"Her character's the most extraordinary thing in all the world," Sir Claude stated to Mrs. Beale.

"Oh I know all about that sort of thing!"—she fairly bridled with the knowledge.

It gave Maisie somehow a sudden sense of responsibility from which she sought refuge. "Well, you've got it too, 'that sort of thing'—you've got the fatal gift: you both really have!" she broke out.

"Beauty of character? My dear boy, we haven't a pennyworth!" Sir Claude protested.

"Speak for yourself, sir!" she leaped lightly from Mrs. Beale. "I'm good and I'm clever. What more do you want? For you, I'll spare your blushes and not be personal—I'll simply say that you're as handsome as you can stick together."

"You're both very lovely; you can't get out of it!"—Maisie felt the need of carrying her point. "And it's beautiful to see you side by side."

Sir Claude had taken his hat and stick; he stood looking at her a moment. "You're a comfort in trouble! But I must go home and pack you."

"And when will you come back?—to-morrow, to-morrow?"

"You see what we're in for!" he said to Mrs. Beale.

"Well, I can bear it if you can."

Their companion gazed from one of them to the other, thinking that though she had been happy indeed between Sir Claude and Mrs. Wix she should evidently be happier still between Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale. But it was like being perched on a prancing horse, and she made a movement to hold on to something. "Then, you know, shan't I bid goodbye to Mrs. Wix?"

"Oh I'll make it all right with her," said Sir Claude.

Maisie considered. "And with mamma?"

"Ah mamma!" he sadly laughed.

Even for the child this was scarcely ambiguous; but Mrs. Beale endeavoured to contribute to its clearness. "Your mother will crow, she'll crow—"

"Like the early bird!" said Sir Claude as she looked about for a comparison.

"She'll need no consolation," Mrs. Beale went on, "for having made your father grandly blaspheme."

Maisie stared.