“Not so much younger. He is a year older than Toppie. Twenty-five. But it wasn’t that. She would, I’m afraid, never have thought of him, with Owen there. Perhaps she had always been too sure of him and taken him too much for granted, while with Owen, until he did, at last, fall in love with her, she was never sure. He was fond of several people, you see, before he was fond of Toppie. I’m afraid she suffered, poor darling. And that’s what one feels,” Mrs. Bradley mused on, while Alix knew a growing discomfort in hearing her. “Owen could have been happy with so many girls; it wasn’t, with him, the one great thing only; whereas with Giles it was.” “And perhaps if she had married him,” said Alix, her thoughts held by that sense of something painful, twisted, difficult to see plainly, “she would have suffered even more. If he continued to be fond of other people.” “Oh, but that couldn’t have been after they were married!” Mrs. Bradley exclaimed, and with a shock of surprise in her voice, while her eyes, almost scared by the suggestion, turned to scan the meditative face of the little French girl beside her. “That couldn’t have been after he loved her at last; after they were engaged. Oh, no; Owen would have been faithful, always.” “But all men are not faithful, are they?” Alix commented, keeping her eyes before her and her voice quiet and impersonal. She felt that she would like to know what Mrs. Bradley thought on this subject. Had not Giles’s horror been somewhat misplaced? “So many wives, I mean, from what one hears, have unfaithful husbands.” Mrs. Bradley continued to scan her and with even more alarm. “But I hope you don’t hear of such dreadful things, dear child. No good husband is unfaithful.” “Is it so very dreadful? Can one govern one’s heart? I see that it is different for a wife,” said Alix. “She is at home and has the children. But a man—out in the world—May he not form many attachments without so much blame?—I do not understand these things, but I cannot see why it is so dreadful.” “You are too young, dear, to understand them. Yet even you, I am sure, can imagine how terrible it would be to know that your husband, whom you loved and trusted, loved other people.” “It might be very sad.” Alix considered the remote contingency. “I see that it might make me sad—if I loved him very much. But I should have the children, the _foyer_. And then he might still love me most, while loving others, too. Do you not find that possible, here in England? In France, I am sure, we do not feel it so strange a thought.”