“We did,” said Grainger, with his own inner sense of grim humor at the memory. “I should think you would find him rather limited.”
“But I’m limited, too,” said Gavan, mildly. “I like being with people so neatly adapted to their functions. There are no loose ends about Best; nothing unfulfilled or uncomfortable. He’s all there—all that there is of him to be there.”
“Not a very lively companion.”
“I’m not a lively companion, either,” Gavan once more, with his mild gaiety, retorted.
Grainger at this gave a harsh laugh. “No, you certainly aren’t,” he agreed.
They had twice paced the length of the yew-tree shadow and Gavan had asked no question; and Grainger felt, as the pause grew, that Gavan never would ask questions. Any onus for a disturbance of the atmosphere must rest entirely on himself, and to disturb it he would have to be brutal.
He jerked aside the veils of the placid dialogue with sudden violence. “I’ve seen Eppie,” he said.
He had intended to use her formal name only, but the nearer word rushed out and seemed to shatter the magic that held him off.
Gavan’s face grew a shade paler. “Have you?” he said.
“You knew that she had been ill?”