“Do you not think so, too, Giles?” she said to her friend in the study. “Do you not see what I mean? She is like a modern kind of saint; so selfless and dedicated and laborious. She never thinks about being happy.” “You make her happy, Alix. Did you know that?” said Giles.—“Yes, I see perfectly what you mean. Yet Mummy never seems to me sad. Does she to you?” “I do not know,” Alix reflected. “She did not begin so quiet, I am sure. Just as the saints did not. At the bottom of her heart she wanted to be loved more; much more;—isn’t that what all people want most, Giles?—And then when she found that she was not to be she must have felt very sad.” “But, I say, you know!”—Giles stared at her from his chair. “You do say the most astonishing things! Not loved enough! Why don’t we all love her!” “Oh, but it would have to be more than that. She would want far more love than English children could ever give to their parents.” “English children! Surely you don’t think that the French love their parents more than we do!” “But of course we do, Giles,” said Alix in candid surprise. “Our mothers we do; for perhaps fathers do not count for so much with us, either.” “Oh, come, I can’t swallow that.” Giles smiling, yet disturbed, was rubbing his hand over his hair. “You—even you—don’t love your mother more than I do mine.” “I think I do, Giles. I think we are more a part of our mothers in France. You stand more alone in England, in everything.” Giles in his disturbance of mind had got up and was looking out of the window. “And what about my father, then?” he said. “What about his love for her? That’s what we think of in England as counting most in a woman’s life. He was devoted to her.” Alix felt a little shy of sharing with Giles her deepest intuition about Mrs. Bradley’s selflessness. “I am afraid not enough, Giles. Did he really see her as you see her? I am afraid he was not a part of herself, and that is what one expects in England and that is why she must have been sad. And I think she loved best always—if you do not mind my saying so—the ones who were most part of herself—you and Captain Owen and Francis. One cannot help loving most people who are most part of oneself.” And though she still kept her French scepticism about marriage, the half-unconscious climax of a long process of change within Alix was reached when she added in her own thought: “How sad to be married to someone who is not part of yourself.” CHAPTER IV It was in the last fortnight of the holidays that a letter, once more, came from Lady Mary asking, as if only a few weeks had elapsed since the last time of asking, if Alix could not now come and stay with them at Cresswell Abbey. The letter was again addressed to Mrs. Bradley and again arrived at breakfast-time so that she read it aloud to the assembled family. “You’ll have to go this time, Alix,” said Giles, with an air of fatherly authority.