“I do not want to see anyone’s head cut off; but if it were a choice between a Boche and a French baby, I should choose the French one to live. That is all we ask of our allies,” Alix added, looking over at Giles with kindly determination; “to help us to live;—as we have helped them;—even at the expense of the Germans.”
Aunt Bella, now, changed the subject. “How is Mr. Westmacott, Giles?”
“No better, I’m afraid.”
“Have they a trained nurse yet?”
“He won’t have one. He won’t admit he’s so bad.”
“It must be very taxing for Enid.” (Aunt Bella always called Toppie by her real name.) “How does she bear it?”
“She looks very worn,” said Giles.
“And I’m afraid she won’t be at all well off when he dies,” said Aunt Bella, as though she placed Toppie’s approaching bereavement and subsequent impoverishment in the same category. “She won’t be able to go on living in the way she does now. And she has been trained to no profession. I have always so blamed Mr. Westmacott for keeping her with him and giving her no education.”
“Toppie is educated, I think,” said Giles, dryly, but his dryness did not conceal from Alix the distress Aunt Bella’s surmises caused him. How much more capable Aunt Bella was, Alix reflected, of sympathizing with large vague masses of humanity than with one human being.
“Not educated at all from the modern point of view,” she returned decisively. “Quite incapable of making her own living. A very dear, good girl, but a useless girl, and there is no room in the world nowadays for useless people.”