He could almost have smiled—but he was nearer weeping at his mother’s voice. Steeped to the lips in the woes of the world as she was, lovers—for anyone one knew—for anyone in one’s own walk of life—was an idea almost as alien, and even more strange and sinister, than nuns and convents. Poor little shop-girls and housemaids had lovers, though usually known less romantically as the fathers of illegitimate babies; she had spent much time and strength in dealing with such sad cases and in pleading on committees that the man was most at fault. But even with Ruth flourishing Freudian theories before her and the latest novels of the newest young writers lying on her tables, Mrs. Bradley thought of unhallowed relations between men and women as of dark, mysterious deviations from the obvious standards of civilization. And now she heard Giles say that Alix’s mother had lovers. “Has had them for years and years, dear Mrs. Bradley,” Lady Mary sadly but firmly defined for her. “Ever since she left Alix’s father with, let us trust, the first of them. With the monsieur Vervier, who, Marigold heard, has never divorced her, and still lives. The last is an André de Valenbois and Marigold met his people. It was from them she heard the story, and from what Giles says I see it is all too true. She is a very distinguished, very dignified _demi-mondaine_. Quite, quite notorious. She’s as well known in Paris,” said Lady Mary with a sigh, relinquishing madame Vervier’s corpse, as it were, to float down the tide of her destiny, “as the Mona Lisa. The masses may not know about her, but everybody else does.” “Not quite so bad as that, is it?” said Giles. He knew, while he listened to Lady Mary, that it would be difficult to say why it was not so bad; but the loyalty to madame Vervier that had so direfully betrayed him to Toppie rose up in grief and anger against these suave definitions. “Madame Vervier isn’t mercenary,” he said. “To be a _demi-mondaine_ you must be mercenary. And I’m sure,” he added, while his mother’s eyes, aghast, and Lady Mary’s eyes, imperturbably kind, dwelt on him, and he knew that to the one he appeared ominously mature, and to the other attractively boyish;—“I’m sure that Alix is legitimate; if that’s any comfort to us.” “And why are you sure?” Lady Mary asked, Mrs. Bradley remaining helplessly silent. “She confided in me,” said Giles, and it was more difficult to face Lady Mary’s kindness than his mother’s dismay. “She was absolutely straight with me. It was when we talked about Alix that she told me everything. It was then I came to like her so much.” “But, Giles”—poor Mrs. Bradley now almost wept—“how can you say you like these dreadful people? You made friends with monsieur de Valenbois, too—how can you like them?” “But, dear Mrs. Bradley,” said Lady Mary with just the brush of a smile across her lips, “one _does_ like them. Why not?”