Then as she sat there, alone, apart, the throb of a big motor came up to the gate, and a moment afterwards a lady was among them who, by her presence, dispelled the sense of loneliness. It might have been into Maman’s salon that she came, so vivid was Alix’s sense of knowing what she would do and say and of liking both beforehand. All furs and pearls and softness, and such sweet smiles, she was one of the people who could see and blow and catch the soap-bubbles, the beautiful, impalpable things of human intercourse, and while she talked to monsieur le professeur, she cast mild, bright glances at Giles, at Mrs. Bradley, at herself. Alix saw that it was at herself that she looked most, and presently, when the lady and Mrs. Bradley talked, Mrs. Bradley called her to them, and holding her hand, scanning her face, the lady said she knew her name. “It’s there behind me; where I don’t quite know;—in an old letter; a volume of _mémoires_; an ancestor of mine, I feel it must have been, who knew a Mouveray in Paris before the Revolution. Yes, that was it. It comes back to me. A comte Henri de Mouveray.” Alix remembered, too. “He was guillotined at Lyon. He was a great-uncle of Grand-père’s.” “And where is Grand-père?” asked Lady Mary Hamble, for such was her name. “Do you live with him?” Alix told her that she had lived with him; but that he was dead. “I live with my mother in Paris,” she said. When Lady Mary was gone, Alix felt herself scanned by Miss Grace and Miss Jennifer as if from a spaniel she had altered to a monkey; not more interesting, but more curious. Monsieur le professeur still didn’t see her at all. He brushed aside Lady Mary and went on talking about Relativity to Giles. “Yes; was it not strange?” said Alix, as, in Giles’s rooms again, Mrs. Bradley commented on the romantic encounter. “There was his portrait at Montarel, that Henri de Mouveray. So grave yet so gay a face, blue-eyed, and with dark hair.” “Like you, Alix,” said Mrs. Bradley, and Alix remembered that he was like her; very. “And to think that someone so near you was guillotined at Lyon,” Mrs. Bradley mused. “He could have known your grandfather.” “Yes. If he had not been guillotined, if he had lived long enough, he could have.” “Don’t you think Lady Mary very lovely, Giles?” said Mrs. Bradley. “She must be as old as I am, I suppose; yet how lovely.” “She’s not nearly as lovely as you are,” said Giles, poking the fire. Mrs. Bradley laughed at the absurdity. “That’s loyal—but not accurate, my dear.” “She’s very pretty, and she’s never had a doubt. She’s always felt that she was lovely and that everyone thought her lovely, and I suppose that preserves the complexion,” said Giles. “But if everyone thinks one so, is it not likely that one is lovely?” Alix inquired. “And if one is so, why should one not think so oneself?” She considered that Giles was captious.