Mrs. Wix transferred her intensity to her pupil's face. "Over to what?"
"To her keeping me instead."
"Instead of Sir Claude?" Mrs. Wix was distinctly gaining time.
"Yes; who else? since it's not instead of you."
Mrs. Wix coloured at this lucidity. "Yes, that is what she means."
"Well, do you like it?" Maisie asked.
She actually had to wait, for oh her friend was embarrassed! "My opposition to the connexion—theirs—would then naturally to some extent fall. She has treated me to-day as if I weren't after all quite such a worm; not that I don't know very well where she got the pattern of her politeness. But of course," Mrs. Wix hastened to add, "I shouldn't like her as the one nearly so well as him."
"'Nearly so well!'" Maisie echoed. "I should hope indeed not." She spoke with a firmness under which she was herself the first to quiver. "I thought you 'adored' him."
"I do," Mrs. Wix sturdily allowed.
"Then have you suddenly begun to adore her too?"