It was characteristic of Alix that the more she saw and felt, the more silent and aloof did she become. It might have been a fundamental racial caution in her blood; the instinct for being sure, first, where you were, and, second, sure of where you wished to be seen as being before you made a movement; and as she felt the pressure of all these strange new realizations—strangest of all about herself—she knew that she possessed reserves of courteous convention more than adequate for any contingencies that might arise at Cresswell Abbey. Quietly smiling at Jerry, she took the place Lady Mary indicated to her beside her on the sofa and saw that the golden-haired lady still watched her while pretending not to. The two young girls were guests. They had very sweet voices that did not mean much. One of them was pretty, and the stout gentleman with the hair brushed over his baldness jested with her in a low voice, but, though he tried so to please her, the pretty girl, while she ate a great many cakes, looked at him with eyes that did not find him amusing. Alix felt with her. “From Jack,” said the radiant lady, looking up from a letter; the butler had just brought in the letters. “What news of Jack?” asked Mr. Hamble. The golden-haired lady was married to his nephew and her name was Marigold. Jack, it seemed, was rather enjoying his job at Singapore. He wrote a long letter, and Mrs. Hamble’s marvellous eyes became very wistful while she read, but Alix felt sure that if she had been reading alone in her own room they would not have looked like that; hard and indifferent rather. “My dear, don’t be so silly,” said the other girl to the young man who was short and robust with a tanned jolly face. He was a sailor, and Alix liked his face and felt that with him she would like to dance. They all knew each other very well and laughed and talked and she felt they saw her as a very young school-girl, for Jerry was now talking to Giles about Oxford, and no one paid any attention to her until Lady Mary began to ask her about Normandy and then about Beauvais and Rouen and so on to Chartres, on which the bald man, whose name was Mr. Fulham and who wrote books, as if observing her for the first time, asked her if she knew his friends the marquis and marquise de Tréville in Normandy and, when she said she did not, turned to the pretty girl again. After tea she found herself alone for a little while with Giles. She felt as if they met after long separation, so completely had the morning’s sadness dissolved in the pervading sense of excitement. “I like it here very much, don’t you?” she said. “It’s a jolly place,” said Giles. “And they’re all so nice. I’m glad you like it. I’m glad you’ll be happy here.” Giles no longer looked cross, but he looked thoughtful, and his eyes turned on her once or twice in a way that made her wonder, with a vague discomfort, whether he guessed at her excitement.