you to take that
farm."

"Don't you see why I can't take it--from _you_? It's because we're
lovers."

"I should have thought that made it easier."

"It makes it impossible. I've _given_ myself to you. I can't take
anything. Besides, it would look as if I'd taken it for that."

"That's an appalling idea, Anne."

"It is. But it's what everybody'll think. They'll wonder what on earth
you did it for. We don't want people wondering about us. If they once
begin wondering they'll end by finding out."

"I see. Perhaps you're right. I'm sorry."

"It sticks out of us enough as it is. I can't think how Maisie doesn't
see it. But she never will. She'll never believe that we--"

"Do you want her to see it?"

"No, but it hurts so, her not seeing.... Jerrold, I believe that's the
punishment--Maisie's trusting us. It's the worst thing she could have
done to us."

"Then, if we're punished we're quits. Don't think of it, Anne darling.
Don't let Maisie come in between us like that."

He took her in his arms and kissed her, close and quick, so that no
thought could come between.

But Maisie's sweetness had not done its worst. She had yet to prove what
she was and what she could do.

v

July passed and August; the harvest was over. And in September Jerrold
went up to London to stay with Eliot for the week-end, and Anne stayed
with Maisie, because Maisie didn't like being left in the big house by
herself. Through all those weeks that was the way Maisie had her,
through her need of her.

And on the Thursday before Anne came Maisie had called on Mrs. Hawtrey
of Medlicote, and Mrs. Hawtrey had asked her to lunch with her on the
following Monday. Maisie said she was afraid she couldn't lunch on
Monday because Anne Severn would be with her, and Mrs. Hawtrey said she
was very sorry, but she was afraid she couldn't ask Anne Severn.

And Maisie enquired in her tender voice, "Why not?"

And Mrs. Hawtrey replied, "Because, my dear, nobody here does ask Anne
Severn."

Maisie said again, "Why not?"

Then Mrs. Hawtrey said she didn't want to go into it, the whole thing
was so unpleasant, but nobody _did_ call on Anne Severn. She was too
well known.

And at that Maisie rose in her fragile dignity and said that nobody knew
Anne Severn so well as she and her husband did, and that there was
nobody in the world so absolutely _good_ as Anne, and that she couldn't
possibly know anybody who refused to know her, and so left Mrs. Haw