"I didn't really mean it," said Alex hurriedly, with the old fatal instinct of propitiation, and read dissent into the silence that received her announcement.
It was the subconscious hope of rectifying herself in Violet's eyes that made her add a moment later:
"Couldn't Barbara have me for a little while when you go up to Scotland? I think she would be quite glad."
"Of course she would. She's often lonely, isn't she? And you think you'd be happy with her?"
"Oh, yes," said Alex eagerly, bent on showing Violet that she had no unnatural aversion from being with her own sister.
But Violet still looked rather troubled.
"You remember that you found it rather difficult there, when you first got back. You said then that Barbara and you had never understood one another even as children."
"Oh, but that will all be different now," said Alex, confused, and knowing that her manner was giving an impression of shiftiness from her very consciousness that she was contradicting herself.
As Pamela's claims and her own ceaseless fear of inadequacy made her increasingly unsure of Violet, Alex became less and less at ease with her.
The old familiar fear of being disbelieved gave uncertainty to every word she uttered and she could not afford to laugh at Pam's merciless amusement in pointing out the number of times that she contradicted herself. Violet always hushed Pamela, but she looked puzzled and rather distressed, and her manner towards Alex was more compassionate than ever.