****'s eyes were full of joy when he made his appearance next morning and saw Maisie, gray-ulstered and black-velvet-hatted, standing in the hallway. Palaces of marble, and not sordid imitation of grained wood, were surely the fittest background for such a divinity. The red-haired girl drew her into the studio for a moment and kissed her hurriedly.
Maisie's eyebrows climbed to the top of her forehead; she was altogether unused to these demonstrations. 'Mind my hat,' she said, hurrying away, and ran down the steps to **** waiting by the hansom.
'Are you quite warm enough! Are you sure you wouldn't like some more breakfast? Put the cloak over you knees.'
'I'm quite comf'y, thanks. Where are we going, ****? Oh, do stop singing like that. People will think we're mad.'
'Let 'em think,--if the exertion doesn't kill them. They don't know who we are, and I'm sure I don't care who they are. My faith, Maisie, you're looking lovely!'
Maisie stared directly in front of her and did not reply. The wind of a keen clear winter morning had put colour into her cheeks. Overhead, the creamy-yellow smoke-clouds were thinning away one by one against a pale-blue sky, and the improvident sparrows broke off from water-spout committees and cab-rank cabals to clamour of the coming of spring.
'It will be lovely weather in the country,' said ****.
'But where are we going?'
'Wait and see.'
The stopped at Victoria, and **** sought tickets. For less than half the fraction of an instant it occurred to Maisie, comfortably settled by the waiting-room fire, that it was much more pleasant to send a man to the booking-office than to elbow one's own way through the crowd. **** put her into a Pullman,--solely on account of the warmth there; and she regarded the extravagance with grave scandalised eyes as the train moved out into the country.
'I wish I knew where we are going,' she repeated for the twentieth time.
The name of a well-remembered station flashed by, towards the end of the run, and Maisie was delighted.
'Oh, ****, you villain!'
'Well, I thought you might like to see the place again. You haven't been here since the old times, have you?'
'No. I never cared to see Mrs. Jennett again; and she was all that was ever there.'
'Not quite. Look out a minute. There's the windmill above the potato-fields; they haven't built villas there yet; d'you remember when Ishut you up in it?'
'Yes. How she beat you for it! I never told it was you.'
'She guessed. I jammed a stick under the door and told you that I was burying Amomma alive in the potatoes, and you believed me. You had a trusting nature in those days.'
They laughed and leaned to look out, identifying ancient landmarks with many reminiscences. **** fixed his weather eye on the curve of Maisie's cheek, very near his own, and watched the blood rise under the clear skin. He congratulated himself upon his cunning, and looked that the evening would bring him a great reward.
When the train stopped they went out to look at an old town with new eyes. First, but from a distance, they regarded the house of Mrs. Jennett.
'Suppose she should come out now, what would you do?' said ****, with mock terror.
'I should make a face.'
'Show, then,' said ****, dropping into the speech of childhood.
Maisie made that face in the direction of the mean little villa, and **** laughed.
'"This is disgraceful,"' said Maisie, mimicking Mrs. Jennett's tone.
'"Maisie, you run in at once, and learn the collect, gospel, and epistle for the next three Sundays. After all I've taught you, too, and three helps every Sunday at dinner! ****'s always leading you into mischief. If you aren't a gentleman, ****, you might at least--"'
The sentence ended abruptly. Maisie remembered when it had last been used.
'"Try to behave like one,"' said ****, promptly. 'Quite right. Now we'll get some lunch and go on to Fort Keeling,--unless you'd rather drive there?'
'We must walk, out of respect to the place. How little changed it all is!'
