She could not
see why she should not, though she felt a certain remorse at the
thought that she had kissed the pillows of his bed. That was the
way it took her.
But Leonora could see that, without the shadow of a doubt, the
incident gave Florence a hold over her. It let Florence into things
and Florence was the only created being who had any idea that the
Ashburnhams were not just good people with nothing to their
tails. She determined at once, not so much to give Florence the
privilege of her intimacy--which would have been the payment of
a kind of blackmail--as to keep Florence under observation until
she could have demonstrated to Florence that she was not in the
least jealous of poor Maisie. So that was why she had entered the
dining-room arm in arm with my wife, and why she had so
markedly planted herself at our table. She never left us, indeed,
for a minute that night, except just to run up to Mrs Maidan's
room to beg her pardon and to beg her also to let Edward take her
very markedly out into the gardens that night. She said herself,
when Mrs Maidan came rather wistfully down into the lounge
where we were all sitting: "Now, Edward, get up and take Maisie
to the Casino.
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