“For Alix?” monsieur de Maubert mildly, yet perhaps not quite ingenuously, questioned.
“You’ve owned to it yourself,” said Giles. “It’s their life she’d want for Alix. The safe life. The respected life. She’d rather that Alix should marry one of their sons than be the most wonderful of actresses.”
“It may be so. Gifted and sagacious people have their weaknesses. You speak again of respect,” said monsieur de Maubert. “All those who are honoured with her friendship respect madame Vervier. You speak of marriage. What wife can hope for adoration? Madame Vervier is adored as well as respected.”
“I should have said that a wife could hope for adoration—and for fidelity as well,” Giles returned.
“Very rarely,” monsieur de Maubert smiled. “And I do not imagine that our hostess—of whom I speak thus openly because I see that between us there is nothing to conceal—has ever had to fear infidelity. She is in the fortunate position of a woman free to choose. She gives happiness when and to whom she wishes.”
Giles sat battling with a confusion of thoughts. He had not meant to discuss madame Vervier with anybody. It was horrible to him that he and monsieur de Maubert should thus be discussing her. But without implying her present it was impossible to discuss Alix’s future. “I don’t call it fortunate,” he said. “I don’t call it happiness.”
“You do not call it happiness to love and to be loved?” monsieur de Maubert inquired. “You have, perhaps, mystic consolations, monsieur Giles; but to the majority of our poor humanity this will always remain the one authentic happiness of life.”
“We have different ideas,” said Giles. “I don’t see love like that. When you speak of her giving happiness, you mean, I suppose, that she has had a great many lovers. That is what those women said. I think that a tragic life, you see; and the more tragic, the more lovely the woman is who leads it.”
“A great many?” monsieur de Maubert weighed it. “Hardly that. She is a serious, not a frivolous woman; and beauty accompanies her always.”
“You see, we have different ideas,” Giles heavily repeated, looking down and tugging at the wicker of his chair. “A love that can be repeated over and over, I don’t call love.”