And he was going on as calmly: “For myself, I do not know that I am in agreement with her. Where her child is concerned, she shows, at times, for a woman so gifted and so sagacious, a certain conventionality of outlook. She who, for herself, has chosen the path of freedom, should have more courage for her child.”
“Isn’t it something of a criticism of the path of freedom that she doesn’t choose it for her child?” Giles felt himself impelled to comment. “Aren’t all mothers conventional when it comes to their daughters? Isn’t convention, in that sense, only another name for safety?”
“Ah; you are a shrewd young man,” said monsieur de Maubert with a smile. “Perhaps it is. Personally I feel that for our little friend the free life of the artist would be a happier one than the life of the English country lady. That life, for a vivid, vigorous nature such as hers, would be, I should imagine, bornée; fade.”
“I don’t see why it should,” said Giles. “But I wasn’t thinking of country ladies, or of marriage at all. We don’t think of marriage like that. I thought of Alix making her living in England. I thought of a life where she would have love and respect about her and be useful and happy.”
“I do not think that such a prospect would at all attract her mother,” monsieur de Maubert remarked. “I do not see what more advantage it offers than a similar life in France. Do you consider, then, that madame Vervier has not love and respect about her and is not useful and happy?”
Giles at this, struck to silence, sat staring at monsieur de Maubert.
“You have doubtless,” monsieur de Maubert continued—and Giles saw that it was not through any inadvertence that he had thus placed the situation of madame Vervier squarely between them; without any embarrassment, without any hesitation, he calmly selected the theme—“you have doubtless heard those women speaking of our hostess as if they did not respect her.”
“Not quite that,” Giles muttered. “They spoke merely as if she didn’t count with them at all.”
“And do you imagine,” monsieur de Maubert inquired, “that they count with her?”
In spite of his confusion Giles could answer this question immediately. “They count with her for Alix,” he said.