“Must I?” Toppie still smiled, and Alix had long since divined her to be invulnerable to praise. She wore her grey to-day; her Sunday grey; and her white neck and throat, unfreckled, were so fair that, imagining her in blue, Alix saw her as a birch-tree against the pale spring sky. But with the cold yet loving look she shook her head and said: “No; I won’t dance.”
“Oh, Toppie—No? Do you mean never?”
“Never,” said Toppie.
“You can say that? When you are so young?”
“It doesn’t need a promise, you know,” said Toppie. “I don’t have to take a pledge. Some things are for one time and some things for another. That time is past. But I’ll come to the dance, of course, and love seeing you all; and grey, really, has always been my colour more than blue. I’ve always worn grey,” said Toppie, smiling; and she went on, leaving that subject very definitely disposed of: “Tell me what you have all been doing since I saw you. Tying up parcels? Your box was so prettily tied.”
“I like ribbons on étrennes. And green ribbon seems to go with Christmas and snow and fir-trees.”
“Ruth and Rosemary had old knotted string round their parcels, poor dears, and brown paper,” Toppie remarked. She always showed a certain kindly ruthlessness in her allusions to the Bradley sisters and Alix sometimes wondered what, if she had married their brother, their relations with their gentle but inflexible sister-in-law would have been. They admired Toppie; they feared her, a very little, for they were not of a nature to feel fear easily; but they did not love her. Already, strange though that was, they were far fonder of herself than of Toppie, and took her for granted as part of the family pack.
“It was a desperation at the end—for string! And all the shops shut,” said Alix. “I bought my ribbon long ago. I had such nice presents from Ruth and Rosemary. Such patience it must take, to go down two whole stockings.”
“Good girls,” said Toppie. “And Giles gave you the writing-case.” Her voice in speaking of Giles was so much kinder than when he was there—to be kept away. Alix always felt a little rise of indignation on Giles’s account when she heard it. It was not as if Giles ever tried to draw near.
“Yes; a delightful writing-case. I keep finding new wonderful flaps and pockets in it. Everything is remembered. And a fountain pen, too. I have never had one before. It makes one’s thoughts come so much more easily if one does not have to dip in the middle of them. I wrote to Maman with it this morning, when they were all at church. It is very happy for me, being there with Giles in his study.”