"She's gone?"
"She's gone."
Nothing more, for the instant, passed between them but to move together to the house, where, in the hall, he indulged in one of those sudden pleasantries with which, to the delight of his stepdaughter, his native animation overflowed. "Will Miss Farange do me the honour to accept my arm?"
There was nothing in all her days that Miss Farange had accepted with such bliss, a bright rich element that floated them together to their feast; before they reached which, however, she uttered, in the spirit of a glad young lady taken in to her first dinner, a sociable word that made him stop short. "She goes to South Africa."
"To South Africa?" His face, for a moment, seemed to swing for a jump; the next it took its spring into the extreme of hilarity. "Is that what she said?"
"Oh yes, I didn't mistake!" Maisie took to herself that credit. "For the climate."
Sir Claude was now looking at a young woman with black hair, a red frock and a tiny terrier tucked under her elbow. She swept past them on her way to the dining-room, leaving an impression of a strong scent which mingled, amid the clatter of the place, with the hot aroma of food. He had become a little graver; he still stopped to talk. "I see—I see." Other people brushed by; he was not too grave to notice them. "Did she say anything else?"
"Oh yes, a lot more."
On this he met her eyes again with some intensity, but only repeating: "I see—I see."
Maisie had still her own vision, which she brought out. "I thought she was going to give me something."