Sir Claude poked his stick at the splashboard of the cab. "Not, my dear child, to the point she now requires."
"Then if she turns me out and I don't come here—"
Sir Claude promptly took her up. "What do I offer you, you naturally enquire? My poor chick, that's just what I ask myself. I don't see it, I confess, quite as straight as Mrs. Wix."
His companion gazed a moment at what Mrs. Wix saw. "You mean we can't make a little family?"
"It's very base of me, no doubt, but I can't wholly chuck your mother."
Maisie, at this, emitted a low but lengthened sigh, a slight sound of reluctant assent which would certainly have been amusing to an auditor. "Then there isn't anything else?"
"I vow I don't quite see what there is."
Maisie waited; her silence seemed to signify that she too had no alternative to suggest. But she made another appeal. "If I come here you'll come to see me?"
"I won't lose sight of you."
"But how often will you come?" As he hung fire she pressed him. "Often and often?"