“No one is as right in every way as she thinks herself,” said Giles. “No one can be so smooth without being artificial. She’s awfully nice, I’m sure; but for beauty, give me Mummy.” It would not be polite to contradict him, but Alix, too, thought Giles absurd. CHAPTER X She and Mrs. Bradley motored home together next day. It had stopped raining and the air had the unexpected softness that mid-winter in England can mitigatingly display. Alix had never yet seen so much of Mrs. Bradley as on this drive. She was the most occupied person; she was always immersed in occupations; and to have her beside one, with nothing to occupy her except driving the car, was to see her with a new completeness. Mrs. Bradley was only not intimate because absorbed in affairs remote from her own interests. She was not even intimate with her own children, for Alix could not remember ever having heard her talk with them about herself. She tenderly took them for granted and took for granted—too much, Alix considered—their capacity for directing their own lives once the main lines were laid out for them. But to-day, with its sense of interlude, no papers to read, no committees to attend, it was as if without becoming intimate she became confiding. It touched Alix to hear her. It touched her because she felt that Mrs. Bradley must so often need to confide and would not know it. She talked to her about Giles. “I know he’ll do well. I know he will be useful. Giles will always pull his weight wherever he is,” she said, and the conception of life as a boat where one’s meaning consisted in pulling one’s weight was a very new one to Alix. When his mother so spoke, she saw Giles sitting, half stripped, in the chilly English air, grey water beneath, grey sky above, bent to the oars among comrades and ready for the word of command. That was what his mother desired for him; that strenuous, rigorous life. Maman did not think of life like that. She wanted no rigours for her child. She didn’t care a bit about her being useful. Other people were to be of use to her and she was to enjoy herself. That was Maman’s idea. “You’ve seen, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Bradley, her gentle eyes fixed before her as she drove, “how fond he is of Toppie. It’s always been so. He’s never thought of anybody else. Even before she and Owen fell in love with each other. I’ve sometimes wondered—I’ve sometimes wished—” Mrs. Bradley’s voice dropped to a musing uncertainty. “Giles was much younger than Captain Owen, was he not?” said Alix.