"Go back? Never!"
"She'll stay all the same?"
"All the more."
"Then won't Sir Claude go?" Maisie asked.
"Go back—if she doesn't?" Mrs. Wix appeared to give this question the benefit of a minute's thought. "Why should he have come—only to go back?"
Maisie produced an ingenious solution. "To make her go. To take her."
Mrs. Wix met it without a concession. "If he can make her go so easily, why should he have let her come?"
Maisie considered. "Oh just to see me. She has a right."
"Yes—she has a right."
"She's my mother!" Maisie tentatively tittered.