The blind man stuck his hand out into space, and Bertie took it.
“Very fit. Glad you’ve come,” said Maurice.
Isabel glanced at them, and glanced away, as if she could not bear to see them.
“Come,” she said. “Come to table. Aren’t you both awfully hungry? I am, tremendously.”
“I’m afraid you waited for me,” said Bertie, as they sat down.
Maurice had a curious monolithic way of sitting in a chair, erect and distant. Isabel’s heart always beat when she caught sight of him thus.
“No,” she replied to Bertie. “We’re very little later than usual. We’re having a sort of high tea, not dinner. Do you mind? It gives us such a nice long evening, uninterrupted.”
“I like it,” said Bertie.
Maurice was feeling, with curious little movements, almost like a cat kneading her bed, for his place, his knife and fork, his napkin. He was getting the whole geography of his cover into his consciousness. He sat erect and inscrutable, remote-seeming Bertie watched the static figure of the blind man, the delicate tactile discernment of the large, ruddy hands, and the curious mindless silence of the brow, above the scar. With difficulty he looked away, and without knowing what he did, picked up a little crystal bowl of violets from the table, and held them to his nose.
“They are sweet-scented,” he said. “Where do they come from?”