Chapter X
He was smoking a cigarette and he stood before the fire and looked at the meagre appointments of the room in a way that made her rather ashamed of them. Then before (on the subject of Mrs. Beale) he let her "draw" him—that was another of his words; it was astonishing how many she gathered in—he remarked that really mamma kept them rather low on the question of decorations. Mrs. Wix had put up a Japanese fan and two rather grim texts; she had wished they were gayer, but they were all she happened to have. Without Sir Claude's photograph, however, the place would have been, as he said, as dull as a cold dinner. He had said as well that there were all sorts of things they ought to have; yet governess and pupil, it had to be admitted, were still divided between discussing the places where any sort of thing would look best if any sort of thing should ever come and acknowledging that mutability in the child's career which was naturally unfavourable to accumulation. She stayed long enough only to miss things, not half long enough to deserve them. The way Sir Claude looked about the schoolroom had made her feel with humility as if it were not very different from the shabby attic in which she had visited Susan Ash. Then he had said in abrupt reference to Mrs. Beale: "Do you think she really cares for you?" "Oh awfully!" Maisie had replied.
"But, I mean, does she love you for yourself, as they call it, don't you know? Is she as fond of you, now, as Mrs. Wix?" The child turned it over. "Oh I'm not every bit Mrs. Beale has!" Sir Claude seemed much amused at this. "No; you're not every bit she has!" He laughed for some moments, but that was an old story to Maisie, who was not too much disconcerted to go on: "But she'll never give me up." "Well, I won't either, old boy: so that's not so wonderful, and she's not the only one. But if she's so fond of you, why doesn't she write to you?" "Oh on account of mamma." This was rudimentary, and she was almost surprised at the simplicity of Sir Claude's question. "I see—that's quite right," he answered. "She might get at you—there are all sorts of ways. But of course there's Mrs. Wix." "There's Mrs. Wix," Maisie lucidly concurred. "Mrs. Wix can't abide her." Sir Claude seemed interested. "Oh she can't abide her? Then what does she say about her?" "Nothing at all—because she knows I shouldn't like it.
