“She is going to talk with you, Giles,” said Alix. She still spoke with her lassitude. It was as if Maman had stretched her too far. “I do not know when. She is occupied, as you see, with her other friends. But she will talk with you. You please her. Very much.”
“Oh, do I?” Giles murmured. If it hadn’t been his dear little Alix he could hardly have kept the irony from his voice. “I hope it will be soon,” he said. “I hadn’t intended my visit to last over the week, you know.”
“I think it will be soon,” said Alix. “But I cannot say for Maman. Shall we swim now, Giles?”
When they all met again at lunch, over the marigolds, it seemed to Giles that madame Vervier looked at him with a new kindliness. She seemed to take it for granted that from his little interview with Alix there must have come a gain for their relation. She asked him if he was coming this afternoon to tennis, and when he said no, that he had work to do, she went on, smiling at him: “You will be abandoned, then, for we all have our tea at Allongeville. But perhaps you will take refuge with madame Dumont and her daughter.”
Alix had told tales. That was evident. Giles summoned an answering smile with which to own that nothing could be further from his wishes than to have tea with mesdames Dumont and Collet.
“You do not care for our ancient neighbor?”
“Not at all,” said Giles.
“Ah, in her day, la pauvre vieille, she had her qualities,” said monsieur de Maubert.
“Blanche told me that Grand’mère found you un jeune homme très sévère,” said madame Vervier, her eyes still resting on him as if with a mild amusement. “She is not accustomed to young men such as you. I do not think she has ever met such a one. It is a heavy intelligence”—she now addressed monsieur de Maubert. “It must always, I imagine, have been a heavy talent. One wonders where Blanche found her delicious gift.”
“A grandfather, a father, might account for that,” said monsieur de Maubert.