“But, of course, darling,” Mrs. Bradley, confused, murmured. “How could you have done differently?”
“And did you think, then,” Lady Mary, all mildness, continued, “that it would never come out?”
“I knew it would have to come out if Alix ever got married,” said Giles. “In your case, I knew that you and madame Vervier were to meet. Alix had seen to that.”
“Yes,” Lady Mary meditated, her eyes on his. “Alix saw to it. Yes; you knew you could count on Alix. We can all count on Alix. Alix was perfect.” She had moved away from the theme of reproach, but it still smarted in Giles and it was with a heavy gaze that he listened as she went on, sweetly showing him that she, too, appreciated to the full their little French girl. “She made everything clear. I never met such clearness. It was wonderful to hear her on that day. Jerry had really, I believe, touched her heart a little—poor little dear—but the last thing she was thinking about was her own heart. She was thinking of all sorts of strange claims and duties. The children, if she married, would have to be Catholics, she told me! And she could not marry anyone who asked her to give up France.”
“I hope you recognize,” said Giles, his heavy gaze on her, “that she would have been just as perfect if, not being French and not being a Catholic, she’d accepted Jerry.”
It was then as if, in the heavy eyes of the young man sitting there, Lady Mary found herself arrested by an unfamiliar image of herself. She had come to do exquisitely what had to be done; and to do it so exquisitely that the element of forbearance in her attitude should be barely, if at all, perceptible. She was, perhaps, doing it exquisitely; but the mirror of dispassionate contemplation presented to her in Giles’s gaze showed her, for perhaps the first time in her life, an unbecoming distortion of her features. She might have been seen as poised there, regretting that she had exposed herself to the revelation. Then, feeling, no doubt, that no evasion was possible, she submitted to seeing that while she could retain the grace of candour she must lose the grace of disinterestedness, and answered: “She wouldn’t have been nearly so perfect for my purposes.”
Giles, at that, turned his eyes away.
“You see, the truth is, my dear Giles,” said Lady Mary, and it was perhaps not the least part of her discomfort to know that he was uncomfortable for her, “dear little Alix needs someone better and braver to deal with her situation than I can afford to be. Someone quite, quite detached and devoted must fall in love with her; someone without a worldly mother to shackle his impulses.—I’m sure he will turn up,”—Lady Mary’s smile dwelt on him, but Giles did not meet it. “And as far as I am concerned, my best security is Alix herself. I’m perfectly aware of that.”
“What is your difficulty, then?” Giles inquired, still averting his eyes from Lady Mary.
“Why, Jerry, of course,” she said, glad to escape to the wider theme. “He won’t leave it where Alix made it so possible to leave it. He is indignant with me and furious with Marigold. He says he won’t give up Alix if her mother is a Messalina. I’m afraid he’s coming here to see her.”