And yet when I kissed her to say good-by I got the impression that she didn't like me or that she didn't trust me. I was not always liked, but I was generally trusted. The idea that this Brokenshire seeress, this suffering priestess whose whole life was to lie on a couch and think, and think, and think, had reserves in her consciousness on my account was painful. I said so to Hugh that evening. "Oh, you mustn't take Mildred's gassing too seriously," he advised. "Gets a lot of ideas in her head: but--poor thing--what else can she do? Since she doesn't know anything about real life, she just spins theories on the subject. Whatever you want to know, little Alix, I'll tell you." "Thanks," I said, dryly, explaining the shiver which ran through me by the fact that we were sitting in the loggia, in the open air. "Then we'll go in." "No, no!" I protested. "I like it much better out here." But he was on his feet. "We'll go in. I can't have my sweet little Alix taking cold. I'm here to protect her. She must do what I tell her. We'll go in." And we went in. It was one of the things I was learning, that my kind Hugh would kill me with kindness. It was part of his way of taking possession. If he could help it he wouldn't leave me for an hour unwatched; nor would he let me lift a hand. "There are servants to do that," he would say. "It's one of the things little Alix will have to get accustomed to." "I can't get accustomed to doing nothing, Hugh." "You'll have plenty to do in having a good time." "Oh, but I must have more than that in life." "In your old life, perhaps; but everything is to be different now. Don't be afraid, little Alix; you'll learn." "Learn what? It seems to me you're taking the possibility of ever learning anything away." This was a joke. Over it he laughed heartily. "You won't know yourself, little Alix, when I've had you for a year." Mr. Brokenshire's compliments to me were in a similar vein. He seemed always to be in search of the superior position he had lost on the day we sat looking up into the hillside wood. His dear Alexandra must never forget her social inexperience. In being raised to a higher level I was to watch the manners of those about me. I was to copy them, as people learning French or Italian try to catch an accent which is not that of their mother tongue. They probably do it badly; but that is better than not doing it at all. I could never be an Ethel Rossiter or a Daisy Burke, but I could become an imitation. Imitations being to the house of Brokenshire like paste diamonds or fish-glue pearls, my gratitude for the effort they made in accepting me had to be the more humble. And yet on occasions I tried to get justice for myself. "I'm not altogether without knowledge of the world, Mr. Brokenshire," I said, after one of his kindly, condescending lectures. "Not only in Canada, but in England, and to some slight extent abroad, I've had opportunities--"