"Will you do it?" said the child quickly.
She shook her head. "It was only supposing, Maidie," she replied.
The little brilliant creature's face fell. "Oh! I wis' you would--make 'em stop right here, just this corner. I want him to stop, an' then I'd go on the ship too, an' sail, an' sail, an' sail." She had forgotten her disappointment in the new idea. That is what the world does generally, thought Helen; and yet----
"I suppose you love your father, don't you, Maidie?" she asked suddenly.
The child looked at her gravely. "'Normous much," she replied, repeating her stock phrase. "An' I love Sir Geoffley 'normous much too. We 're goin' to live together, an' I'm to be his darlin' for ever an' ever an' nay! Ain't we? Ain't we?"
And she flung herself into his arms as he approached them, an unreserved joyous bundle of curls, smiles, and dimples. His face relaxed from the hard look of pressing anxiety it had worn all day. He caught the child up, tossing her like a feather above his long length, then cuddling her close to kiss.
"For ever, and ever, and aye!" he echoed; "Never fear, Maidie, I'm yours to command."
Then he set her down and turned to his daughter. "Helen!" he said, "I've some business here which may keep me awhile. You'll drive back with Hirsch, of course."
She did not meet his eyes, but kept hers far out at sea.
"I think not, father," she said gently, "I want to walk home with Ned. I have something to say to him."
Sir Geoffrey looked at her resentfully. "Ned has found a sick Indian friend upstairs and won't be available--you'd better go."
She turned round then. "No, father, I can't. It isn't fair--on him. Even coming here----" She broke off, and turned to the sea again.
He came closer, hesitated. "Nell," he said almost pitifully, "can't you--to please me? He really is a good fellow at bottom. I wouldn't ask it otherwise. It would free me--from you don't know what. And, my God! in London half the pretty women one meets are married to such awful bounders."
"It is because Mr. Hirsch isn't a bounder--because he really is in some ways a good fellow," she said, "that I will not--I can walk back with the others."
He stood looking at her with anger and affection in his eye for a moment, then strode off to say good-bye to Mrs. Massingham.
"I suppose your husband may drop in any moment," he said cheerfully.
"Any moment," she echoed, "we are so excited, Maidie and I. This morning we saw such a big vessel passing, right away on the horizon. The manager thought it might be a transport."
Maidie looked up and nodded her cloud of curls. "But it wasn't, you see," she said; "for she's--(here she nodded again at Helen)--goin' to signal 'Stop here!'"
"That was only supposing, Maidie!"
"Supposing an' supposing an' supposin'. 'Free times 'free is 'free," quoted Maidie slyly, "Just you wait an' see."
"Yes! wait and see," laughed Sir Geoffrey; "Goodbye, little one! Next time, I suppose, daddy will have put my nose out of joint, and you won't have anything to say to me--eh?"
She grew crimson to her ear-tips. "Never! never! never!" she cried, stamping her foot wilfully; "we's goin' to live together for everan'everan'--aye!"
The bystanders laughed at her sudden passion, and Sir Geoffrey's thin, ruddy face actually flushed a still deeper red.
"All right, little lady," he said half-sheepishly. "Never you fear! I'll keep my promise for ever an' never an'-naye!"
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