And again there was a silence. How carefully Giles was considering his answer was made apparent by the length of the silence; but what he said finally, more gently than ever, seemed clear. “I’m more sure of that than ever, Alix. You see, she’s so fond of you.”
CHAPTER II
If Toppie, too, was changed, she was not changed to her. That was the first thing that Alix felt when she saw her again; next day;—for a note had been waiting for her at Heathside asking her to come to the Rectory.
It was a hot, still day and a bee was droning lazily about the Rectory drawing-room, flying out into the sunlight and in again to the bowl of mignonette that stood on a table near the window; and the bee made the day more still. It had been strange to find herself thinking of Racine as she waited for Toppie. Nothing so trivial and intimate as a bee could be imagined in any play of Racine’s; yet its soft drone had accompanied her sense of a pause, of an ominous interlude, like the pause before a scene where the heroine was to enter with some quiet, conclusive word. It was, perhaps, because of this association of ideas that Toppie, when she entered, had looked to her like the Racine heroine, like a creature delicate and austere, dimly conscious of an impending doom. There was fear in Toppie’s face as it found her there. Alix saw its white gleam mastered, resolutely veiled, while, at the same moment, the full security of Giles’s assurance was brought warmly home to her by Toppie’s encircling arms, by a new note of emotion in her voice as she said, kissing her, “Dear, dear child.”
Toppie was changed; but it could not be because of her. It was her father’s illness that had changed her and Giles had spoken the whole truth; but all the same, involuntarily, she found herself saying, while Toppie’s arms were still around her: “Are you glad to have me back?” And she heard that her voice trembled in speaking.
Whatever the fear had been, Toppie had mastered it. She held her by the shoulders and looked at her, smiling, and said: “So glad, dear little Alix, that I feel we ought to keep you always.” Then she held her off and looked her up and down, still smiling, and added: “But it isn’t a child any longer. It’s an almost grown-up young person.”
It was strange to feel herself, all reassured as she was, wanting dreadfully to cry; but Alix, too, was an adept at mastering emotion, and she said, taking off her hat so that Toppie should see all the changes: “Do you like my hair?”
“I like it very much.” Toppie kept her hand, turning her round. “I like seeing your forehead, such a gentle, thoughtful forehead. I like that big black bow at your neck.”
“That is a jeune fille bow—a bow of transition,” smiled Alix. “It is to be there while the hair grows long enough to make a knot.”
“I like it all,” said Toppie.