“Five minutes stroll outside, Vi?” he asked.
“It’s rather late,” she said.
“Right,” said Colin cheerfully, and went forth alone, whistling into the darkness.
The moment he had gone Violet regretted not having gone too. Since Colin’s return she had not had a half-hour all told alone with him, and the tension of his entire indifference to her was becoming intolerable. She had not dreamed that he would cut himself off from her with this hideous completeness, nor yet how much she longed for the renewal of the old intimacy. Bitterest of all was the fact that she meant nothing to him, for he had never been more light-heartedly gay. Where Philip, knowing what he did, saw strained and heroic effort, she saw only the contemptuous ignoring of herself and Raymond.... And now, with that same craving for self-torture that is an obsession to the luckless in love, when Colin made his first advance to her again, she must needs reject it. There was Raymond watching her, and revolt against that hungry look of his decided her. She stepped out on to the terrace.
Colin had come to the far end of it; his whistling directed her; and now in the strong starlight, she could see the glimmer of his shirt-front. She felt her knees trembling and hid the reason out of sight as she strolled, as unconcernedly as she could, towards him. Soon he perceived her and his whistling stopped.
“Hullo, Vi,” he said, “so you’ve come out after all. That’s ripping.”
They were close to each other now, and bright was the stream of starlight on him.
“Managed to tear yourself away from Raymond for five minutes?” he asked. “I was beginning to think I should never have a word with you again.”
“That’s your fault,” said she. “You have been a brute all this last week.”
“I? A brute?” said Colin. “What do you mean? I thought I had been conducting myself superbly....”