If Alix could help her mother, Giles could help her. This was an opportunity. “But why shouldn’t you bring your kitten to England, Alix?” he said. “There’s no quarantine for cats. You could carry it easily in a basket.”
From the quick, upward glance that Alix cast at him above the kitten’s lapping head, he saw that its fate, in spite of Maman’s assurances, had indeed preoccupied her. “Oh, may I, Giles?”
“Of course you may. Rather!”
“Your mother will not mind?”
“Can you imagine Mummy minding another animal at Heathside? Why, she’s lived and breathed and had her being, always, in a swarm of dogs, cats, and guinea-pigs. You don’t forget, I’m sure, those white rats all over the place last winter. She never said a word even when she found them in her bed.”
“I remember. Yes. She is so kind. I should be very glad to have my kitten.” Alix stroked the kitten’s back. She looked down at it, and for a moment Giles was afraid that she might be on the verge of tears.
“And if mademoiselle Alix will permit me,” said André, wishing to do his bit, but, for once, blundering sadly, “I will present her, in place of this very ugly little cat, with the most beautiful chat Angora that can be found in Paris. A superb white Angora, mademoiselle Alix; with blue eyes like those of a saint in a missal.—Cela vous sourit?” André’s own eyes were as blue and as bright as those of any saint in any missal.
“Not at all, thank you,” said Alix. “This ugly little cat is the only one I want.”
Giles wondered, as the day went on, whether Alix was going to let him see nothing more than she showed the others. There must be for her a sense of bitter humiliation in Maman’s failure to fulfill her proud assurances. And it would be like Alix to keep silent if she were humiliated. But how near him she felt herself to be was shown to him when, after tea, following the others along the cliff-path, she said: “So I am to go back to you, Giles.”
She ignored the morning interlude. She dismissed it as the piece of acting it had been. She faced the whole subject for the first time, with him, her friend.