"I'm so sorry for her—only it's difficult sometimes—a feeling like shifting sands. One doesn't know what to be at with her. If only she said what she wanted or didn't want, right out, but it's that awful anxiety to please—poor darling."
"She always was like that, from our nursery days. You never could get the rights of a matter out of her—plain black or white—she'd say one thing one day and another the next, always."
"That's what I find so difficult! It's impossible to do anything for a person like that—it's the one thing I can't understand."
"Pack her off to Hampstead tomorrow," Cedric observed gruffly. "I will not have you bothered."
"Oh, Cedric! I'm not bothered—how can you? She'll be going next week, anyway, poor dear, and it may be easier for her to be herself with Barbara, who's her own sister, after all. But I don't know what about afterwards—when we get back."
"You'll have quite enough to think about with Pam's wedding, without Alex on your hands as well. Violet," said Cedric, with a note in his voice that Alex had never heard there, "when I think of the way you've behaved to all my wretched family—"
Alex did not hear Violet's answer, which was very softly spoken.
She had turned and gone away upstairs in the dark.