Chapter 31 - Page 2

wanted to procrastinate quite as much as
she did; he was not a bit more in a hurry to get back to the others.
Maisie herself at this moment could be secretly merciless to Mrs. Wix--
to the extent at any rate of not caring if her continued disappearance
did make that lady begin to worry about what had become of her, even
begin to wonder perhaps if the truants hadn't found their remedy. Her
want of mercy to Mrs. Beale indeed was at least as great; for Mrs.
Beale's worry and wonder would be as much greater as the object at which
they were directed. When at last Sir Claude, at the far end of the
_plage_, which they had already, in the many-coloured crowd, once
traversed, suddenly, with a look at his watch, remarked that it was
time, not to get back to the _table d'hôte_, but to get over to the
station and meet the Paris papers--when he did this she found herself
thinking quite with intensity what Mrs. Beale and Mrs. Wix WOULD say. On
the way over to the station she had even a mental picture of the
stepfather and the pupil established in a little place in the South
while the governess and the stepmother, in a little place in the North,
remained linked by a community of blankness and by the endless series of
remarks it would give birth to. The Paris papers had come in and her
companion, with a strange extravagance, purchased no fewer than eleven:
it took up time while they hovered at the bookstall on the restless
platform, where the little volumes in a row were all yellow and pink and
one of her favourite old women in one of her favourite old caps
absolutely wheedled him into the purchase of three. They had thus so
much to carry home that it would have seemed simpler, with such a
provision for a nice straight journey through France, just to "nip," as
she phrased it to herself, into the coupé of the train that, a little
further along, stood waiting to start. She asked Sir Claude where it was
going.

"To Paris. Fancy!"

She could fancy well enough. They stood there and smiled, he with all
the newspapers under his arm and she with the three books, one yellow
and two pink. He had told her the pink were for herself and the yellow
one for Mrs. Beale, implying in an interesting way that these were the
natural divisions in France of literature for the young and for the old.
She knew how prepared they looked to pass into the train, and she
presently brought out to her companion: "I wish we could go. Won't you
take me?"

He continued to smile. "Would you really come?"

"Oh yes, oh yes. Try."

"Do you want me to take our tickets?"

"Yes, take them."

"Without any luggage?"

She showed their