The screen, on a background of pearly satin, had two doves in a basket, entwined with laurel; and the chairs, in a softer, sadder key, repeated them. “They are beautiful,” said Alix. It seemed to her, as she looked at the gentle doves, that the dead, in Toppie’s drawing-room, joined pale hands around her and whispered: “We are here.” But it was so sad. The doves nestling side by side, so confident of love, made her think of all the partings of the world. “My great-grandmother was married to a soldier,” said Toppie, “and went out to India and died there when my grandfather was born. She did all those chairs while she was waiting for his birth. She was only twenty-one. I often think of her; so young; stitching her thoughts of home, her hopes for her baby—the past and the future—into the embroidery. And one feels how happy she must have been in her marriage to have chosen that design. My poor great-grandfather brought all her things back to England, with his little boy.—That funny little water-colour sketch is of him, in his frilled cap; with his ayah.—And he grew up to be a soldier, too, and was killed, out in India, fighting a frontier tribe. My mother was his only child. I was fourteen when she died. How happy you are to have your mother, Alix. She makes beautiful things, too. I shan’t forget the little lemon silk jacket.” Alix’s sense of sadness had deepened while Toppie spoke. So different Toppie’s past; so different Toppie’s mother, she felt sure: and the sense of sadness was in the difference. An abyss seemed to lie between her and Toppie, an abyss that Toppie did not see and could not, perhaps, even imagine. She could not place Toppie against any of the backgrounds familiar to her. She could not see her in Maman’s salon, unless as one of those dim evasive figures, the “Misses” of her childhood, someone dressed differently, hovering diffidently and helping with the tea and cakes. She could see Toppie in Maman’s salon as her governess, but in no other capacity. Toppie would not understand anything said there, or would not care to understand. She would draw away from the shining soap-bubble. She would look with cold dismay at madame Gérardin and mademoiselle Fontaine. It was sad to feel fond of someone and to feel them fond of you, and yet to see that only here, among her doves, could their worlds touch at all. It was growing dark, and Toppie said that she would take her home, and, in the hall, lighted a little lantern for the walk across the common. They had gone halfway when they saw, in the distance, another lantern advancing towards them. “It is Giles,” said Toppie, pausing. “He has come for you. So I will go back. I have some letters to finish for the post.” “But come to meet him. He will, I am sure, be glad of a word with you,” said Alix. She felt sure that it had been in the hope of a word with Toppie rather than to fetch herself that Giles had come.