Mrs. Wix's laugh, at this, was literally wild. "'Us?' Thank you!"
The words made her friend jump. "You give me up? You break with me for ever? You turn me into the street?"
Maisie, though gasping a little, bore up under the rain of challenges. "Those, it seems to me, are the things you do to ME."
Mrs. Wix made little of her valour. "I can promise you that, whatever I do, I shall never let you out of my sight! You ask me why it's immorality when you've seen with your own eyes that Sir Claude has felt it to be so to that dire extent that, rather than make you face the shame of it, he has for months kept away from you altogether? Is it any more difficult to see that the first time he tries to do his duty he washes his hands of HER--takes you straight away from her?"
Maisie turned this over, but more for apparent consideration than from any impulse to yield too easily. "Yes, I see what you mean. But at that time they weren't free." She felt Mrs. Wix rear up again at the offensive word, but she succeeded in touching her with a remonstrant hand. "I don't think you know how free they've become."
"I know, I believe, at least as much as you do!"
Maisie felt a delicacy but overcame it. "About the Countess?"
"Your father's--temptress?" Mrs. Wix gave her a sidelong squint. "Perfectly. She pays him!"
"Oh DOES she?" At this the child's countenance fell: it seemed to give a reason for papa's behaviour and place it in a more favourable light. She wished to be just. "I don't say she's not generous. She was so to me."
Mrs. Wix stared. "And pray what did you do with a lot of money?"
"To the Countess? Gammon!" said Mrs. Wix. She disposed of that plea as effectually as Susan Ash.
"Well, I don't care!" Maisie replied. "What I mean is that you don't know about the rest."
Maisie wondered how she could best put it. "Papa kept me there an hour."
"I do know--Sir Claude told me. Mrs. Beale had told him."
Maisie looked incredulity. "How could she--when I didn't speak of it?"
"The Countess? Of course she's frightful!" Mrs. Wix returned. After a moment she added: "That's why she pays him."
Maisie pondered. "It's the best thing about her then--if she gives him as much as she gave ME!"
"Well, it's not the best thing about HIM! Or rather perhaps it IS too!" Mrs. Wix subjoined.