“I did not say that he was not true,” Toppie returned, with a touch of severity. “I said that he would be more easily misled than Ruth. I said that he was weaker than Ruth.” They sat for a few strange moments silent. “But it is as if you were changed to Giles,” Alix cried suddenly. She could not repress the cry. “What is it, Toppie? What has he done to displease you? You are unkind to him. You speak as if you did not care for him.” A deep blush rose in Toppie’s face; but it was not the blush of surprise or confusion. Alix saw a competent sternness in the eyes bent upon her. “You must not say things like that,” Toppie said slowly, considering every word. “There are things you do not understand. I shall always care for Giles. I have not changed to him. No,” she repeated as if to herself, “I have not changed to Giles.” They sat there, still hand in hand. Alix felt that she wished to fling Toppie’s hand aside. In answer to her sternness she had felt an instant anger rise within her. That Toppie should reprove, rebuff her, was itself an affront she bore with difficulty—and bore only because she feared to damage Giles’s cause by rejoinder; but her anger passed the personal wrong by and fastened itself, strangely, inevitably, on the figure of Captain Owen. It was Toppie herself, in the picture she had drawn of Giles, who had set him so vividly before her. Captain Owen, not Giles, was the person who would blur black into grey; Captain Owen was the person who, in comparison with honest Ruth, lacked something. Giles was everything that his brother had not been, and yet it was Captain Owen who had betrayed Toppie—she found the word and it sank with a cold weight on her heart;—it was Captain Owen, now, she felt sure of it, who parted Giles and Toppie. She sat, her eyes fixed proudly before her; her lips hard. “Alix,” Toppie said in a gentle voice, “if so much has changed in my life—you mustn’t change.” “It feels to me as if it were you who were changed, Toppie,” said Alix. “You must forgive me, then,” said Toppie with her firm gentleness. “I am not quite myself, perhaps. I am rather on edge. I know I seemed to speak harshly. You see, dear Alix, you are still, really, a child—one cares for you so much that one forgets it. But there are things you cannot understand.” “Perhaps I understand some things better than you do, Toppie,” Alix returned, still not looking at her friend. At that, for a moment, Toppie sat quite silent. “Perhaps you do,” she then said. “Some things, perhaps you do. But I feel sure that you do not understand the things I am speaking of.” After that they tried to talk as if nothing had happened. Toppie’s manner had an atoning sweetness. Once or twice, in the way she spoke, the way she looked at her, it was as if, Alix felt, one of Toppie’s doves had spread its brooding wings over her, protectingly, tenderly. She knew that she had not forgiven Toppie; and yet she was the fonder of her because she had not forgiven her.