What Maisie Knew

by Henry James

Mrs. Wix tried blind dignity. "Who is what, Sir Claude?"

"The man who stands the cabs. Who was in the one that waited at your door?"

At this challenge she faltered so long that her young friend's pitying conscience gave her a hand. "It wasn't the Captain."

This good intention, however, only converted the excellent woman's scruple to a more ambiguous stare; besides of course making Sir Claude go off. Mrs. Wix fairly appealed to him. "Must I really tell you?"

His amusement continued. "Did she make you promise not to?"

Mrs. Wix looked at him still harder. "I mean before Maisie."

Sir Claude laughed again. "Why she can't hurt him!"

Maisie felt herself, as it passed, brushed by the light humour of this. "Yes, I can't hurt him."

The straighteners again roofed her over; after which they seemed to crack with the explosion of their wearer's honesty. Amid the flying splinters Mrs. Wix produced a name. "Mr. Tischbein."

There was for an instant a silence that, under Sir Claude's influence and while he and Maisie looked at each other, suddenly pretended to be that of gravity. "We don't know Mr. Tischbein, do we, dear?"