Toppie was considering him. “You say she’s made you more French. It’s true that you understand things you never could have understood before.—You know how horribly afraid your understanding made me once.—But as I listen to you it seems to me that you are the most English thing there is. What Frenchman would ever do what you have done, or feel what you feel about Alix? Isn’t it an English way of feeling to love like that, without a thought of self?—And Alix has shown us, shown you and me, Giles, how she can love.” “I know, Toppie, dear, I know,” Giles murmured. “But with her it’s just because she loves me selflessly that she’ll never love me differently.” “I believe she may. I believe she will. And what you must do,” said Toppie, “is go over and see.” “With Jerry in the way? I couldn’t do that.” “Let him have his chance, then, first. Let him go to France and ask her. I’m not afraid of Jerry. I feel as if I understood Alix better than you do. May I tell you something, Giles? You must not think me foolish, but things seem to come to me so strangely now.—I’ve always wanted this for you. From the first time I saw Alix, it was what I wanted. And now, when I shut my eyes and think of you and her, it is always together that I see you . . . with my doves around you. That would be my wedding-present to you, you know,” Toppie smiled at him and her smile had the colour of light and came from far distances; “all my doves, to watch over you and Alix and keep you safe together always.” CHAPTER V Giles did not believe in what his dear Toppie had told him; did not believe that the fairy princess could ever be for him; but the thought of her words hovered round him as if her very doves sought the nest she promised. It was impossible. He could not recall a glance or word of Alix’s that made it seem possible; yet it hovered. The thought of Alix accompanied his days. He had said that he had nothing to give her and it was true that he had no fairy-prince gifts; but sculling quietly on the Cherwell at evening, Giles, resting on his oars and watching his beloved Oxford glide past, would remember how many things they had shared together, simple, happy things, the gifts of life that were there for everybody to share. She had liked Oxford, too, when she had last come. He treasured every discerning phrase that his memory could recover. She had said that it was kinder than anything in France; and the simile of the humane old bishop, with his ring and robes and benignant face, came back to him, and how one day, when they read “The Scholar Gipsy” together, she had said: “It seems to me that learning is happier with you than with us, Giles, and goes with happier things.—Some day you will take me for all those walks your gipsy took.”