Her father was vague for an instant. "Do you mean sure of his liking you?"
"Oh no; of his liking her!"
Beale had a return of gaiety. "There's no accounting for tastes! It's what they all say, you know."
"I don't care—I'm sure of him!" Maisie repeated.
"Sure, you mean, that she'll bolt?"
Maisie knew all about bolting, but, decidedly, she was older, and there was something in her that could wince at the way her father made the ugly word—ugly enough at best—sound flat and low. It prompted her to amend his allusion, which she did by saying: "I don't know what she'll do. But she'll be happy."
"Let us hope so," said Beale—almost as for edification. "The more happy she is at any rate the less she'll want you about. That's why I press you," he agreeably pursued, "to consider this handsome offer—I mean seriously, you know—of your sole surviving parent." Their eyes, at this, met again in a long and extraordinary communion which terminated in his ejaculating: "Ah you little scoundrel!" She took it from him in the manner it seemed to her he would like best and with a success that encouraged him to go on: "You are a deep little devil!" Her silence, ticking like a watch, acknowledged even this, in confirmation of which he finally brought out: "You've settled it with the other pair!"
"Well, what if I have?" She sounded to herself most bold.
Her father, quite as in the old days, broke into a peal. "Why, don't you know they're awful?"
She grew bolder still. "I don't care—not a bit!"