“Oh, just who we were, and what we were doing here, and why in the dickens you weren’t just the quiet little French girl she’d expected. The funny part of it was,” said Giles, smiling broadly as he thought of it, “she didn’t know a bit that I saw what she was after. Silly ass; thinking herself so gracefully concealed and all the time as gross and as glaring as possible. She’s stupid all right,” said Giles. “Though I daresay it makes one stupid to imagine one’s dealing with a negligible noodle. You let her alone, Alix. She’s a cat.”
This was very pleasant to Alix.
“She has a false face,” she observed. “I shall certainly let her alone; for she displeased me from the first.”
Then Lady Mary came back and sat down and talked with them, of France again, and of Oxford, and Professor Cockburn, and then Jerry, having changed his hunting-clothes for homespun, came and carried Giles off to billiards, but Lady Mary said she would keep Alix with her, and, when the two young men were gone, said: “How dear he is, your Giles; such a delightful solid mind,” so that Alix flushed with pleasure. She was glad to have Giles appreciated and it made her fonder of Lady Mary that she should appreciate him.
Lady Mary then questioned her about Giles and his family and how she had come to know them, and Alix, replying, felt herself move along the surfaces prepared for her by Giles and Maman. She told Lady Mary about Captain Owen and how great a friend he had been and of how he had wished her to know his family. There was nothing else to tell. Lady Mary knew just what Mrs. Bradley knew.
She was glad to rest for a little while before dinner, lying in her room on the sofa with a soft cushion under her head and the firelight softly glowing on her closed eyelids, until it was time to dress. Debenham had laid out on the bed the very dress she herself would have chosen; her prettiest dress, of white and crystal; and the sense of elation and excitement mounted in her with thick swift strokes, as of rising wings, while, before the mirror, Debenham fastened it for her. Debenham thought her beautiful. Her quiet, sagacious face, glancing at the reflected figure, told Alix that she thought so; and Debenham had seen many pretty young ladies.
When she was left alone, she stood and looked at herself. Yes; was it true. Beautiful that little head; beautiful the long, splendid throat, the breast and arms so white. In the tilted mirror she looked like a naiad hovering within the thin falling lines of a fountain. Tiny crystal drops fell along her arms and flowed from breast to hem. She moved, and liquid lines of crystal moved with her. Her shoes were of silver and a fillet of twisted silver and crystal bound her dark hair. “Dieu que je suis belle!” Alix murmured. She seemed to float on a sense of buoyant power. She had never known such happiness.
They all thought her beautiful. She saw that as she came among them. Jerry was there—he was the first she saw, looking at her; and the young sailor looked; and kind Mr. Hamble; Marigold Hamble in pink and diamonds looked, too, very hard.
“The lovely dress! Paris, of course,” said Lady Mary, smiling at her as though she were grateful to her for placing an object so decorative in her drawing-room.
“Paris and Maman,” Alix smiled, and the memory of Maman rushed over her almost with a smart of tears. She owed it all to Maman, this transfiguration. She was not really so beautiful, by daylight. It was Maman’s magic that enveloped her, and Maman was not here to see her in it. It was cruel that a stranger, Lady Mary, should garner Maman’s sheaves.