ad, at this, they still faced each other. "You spend the
night there?"

"Yes, I brought some things. I went to the hotel and hastily arranged;
then I caught the train that whisked me on here. You see what a day I've
had of it."

The statement may surprise, but these were really as obliging if not as
lucid words as, into her daughter's ears at least, Ida's lips had ever
dropped; and there was a quick desire in the daughter that for the hour
at any rate they should duly be welcomed as a ground of intercourse.
Certainly mamma had a charm which, when turned on, became a large
explanation; and the only danger now in an impulse to applaud it would
be that of appearing to signalise its rarity. Maisie, however, risked
the peril in the geniality of an admission that Ida had indeed had a
rush; and she invited Sir Claude to expose himself by agreeing with her
that the rush had been even worse than theirs. He appeared to meet this
appeal by saying with detachment enough: "You go back there to-night?"

"Oh yes--there are plenty of trains." Again Sir Claude hesitated; it
would have been hard to say if the child, between them, more connected
or divided them. Then he brought out quietly: "It will be late for you
to knock about. I'll see you over."

"You needn't trouble, thank you. I think you won't deny that I can help
myself and that it isn't the first time in my dreadful life that I've
somehow managed it." Save for this allusion to her dreadful life they
talked there, Maisie noted, as if they were only rather superficial
friends; a special effect that she had often wondered at before in the
midst of what she supposed to be intimacies. This effect was augmented
by the almost casual manner in which her ladyship went on: "I dare say
I shall go abroad."

"From Dover do you mean, straight?"

"How straight I can't say. I'm excessively ill."

This for a minute struck Maisie as but a part of the conversation;
at the end of which time she became aware that it ought to strike
her--though it apparently didn't strike Sir Claude--as a part of
something graver. It helped her to twist nearer. "Ill, mamma--really
ill?"

She regretted her "really" as soon as she had spoken it; but there
couldn't be a better proof of her mother's present polish than that Ida
showed no gleam of a temper to take it up. She had taken up at other
times much tinier things. She only pressed Maisie's head against her
bosom and said: "Shockingly, my dear. I must go