“I adore him. I adore him.”
Maisie took it well in; so well that in a moment more
she would have answered profoundly: “So
do I.” But before that moment passed something
took place that brought other words to her lips; nothing
more, very possibly, than the closer consciousness
in her hand of the significance of Mrs. Wix’s.
Their hands remained linked in unutterable sign of
their union, and what Maisie at last said was simply
and serenely: “Oh I know!”
Their hands were so linked and their union was so
confirmed that it took the far deep note of a bell,
borne to them on the summer air, to call them back
to a sense of hours and proprieties. They had
touched bottom and melted together, but they gave
a start at last: the bell was the voice of the
inn and the inn was the image of luncheon. They
should be late for it; they got up, and their quickened
step on the return had something of the swing of confidence.
When they reached the hotel the table d’hote
had begun; this was clear from the threshold, clear
from the absence in the hall and on the stairs of the
“personnel,” as Mrs. Wix said—she
had picked THAT up—all collected in the
dining-room. They mounted to their apartments
for a brush before the glass, and it was Maisie who,
in passing and from a vain impulse, threw open the
white and gold door. She was thus first to utter
the sound that brought Mrs. Wix almost on top of her,
as by the other accident it would have brought her
on top of Mrs. Wix. It had at any rate the effect
of leaving them bunched together in a strained stare
at their new situation. This situation had put
on in a flash the bright form of Mrs. Beale:
she stood there in her hat and her jacket, amid bags
and shawls, smiling and holding out her arms.
If she had just arrived it was a different figure
from either of the two that for THEIR benefit, wan
and tottering and none too soon to save life, the
Channel had recently disgorged. She was as lovely
as the day that had brought her over, as fresh as
the luck and the health that attended her: it
came to Maisie on the spot that she was more beautiful
than she had ever been. All this was too quick
to count, but there was still time in it to give the
child the sense of what had kindled the light.
That leaped out of the open arms, the open eyes, the
open mouth; it leaped out with Mrs. Beale’s
loud cry at her: “I’m free, I’m
free!”
The greatest wonder of all was the way Mrs. Beale
addressed her announcement, so far as could be judged,
equally to Mrs. Wix, who, as if from sudden failure
of strength, sank into a chair while Maisie surrendered
to the visitor’s embrace. As soon as the
child was liberated she met with profundity Mrs. Wix’s
stupefaction and actually was able to see that while
in a manner sustaining the encounter her face yet seemed
with intensity to say: “Now, for God’s
sake, don’t crow ’I told you so!’”
