ten o'clock
They offered the good lady herself , Maisie could immediately observe , not only that of this rather grand reference , which , already emulous , so far as it went , of her pupil , she made as if she had spent her life in salons ; but that of a stiff French sofa where she could sit and stare at the faint French lamp , in default of the French clock that had stopped , as for some account of the time Sir Claude would so markedly interpose . Her demeanour accused him so directly of hovering beyond her reach that Maisie sought to divert her by a report of Susan 's quaint attitude on the matter of their conversation after lunch . Maisie had mentioned to the young woman for sympathy 's sake the plan for her relief , but her disapproval of alien ways appeared , strange to say , only to prompt her to hug her gloom ; so that between Mrs. Wix 's effect of displacing her and the visible stiffening of her back the child had the sense of a double office and enlarged play for pacific powers . These powers played to no great purpose , it was true , in keeping before Mrs. Wix the vision of Sir Claude 's perversity , which hung there in the pauses of talk and which he himself , after unmistakeable delays , finally made quite lurid by bursting in -- it was near ten o'clock -- with an object held up in his hand . She knew before he spoke what it was ; she knew at least from the underlying sense of all that , since the hour spent after the Exhibition with her father , had not sprung up to reinstate Mr. Farange -- she knew it meant a triumph for Mrs. Beale . The mere present sight of Sir Claude 's face caused her on the spot to drop straight through her last impression of Mr. Farange a plummet that reached still deeper down than the security of these days of flight . She had wrapped that impression in silence -- a silence that had parted with half its veil to cover also , from the hour of Sir Claude 's advent , the image of Mr. Farange 's wife .