He didn’t look at her again, but she knew that he was conscious of her, and that he included her among his audience. He went on, always like an adored actor secure of rapt attention, telling them things, painting vivid pictures for them. In the midst of his finest phrases, he would use the coarsest and bluntest of old words, abruptly, like a gross insult in a love sonnet. He aimed deliberately to startle and amaze, and he succeeded. The three women listened spell-bound; Angelica above all, quite caught in his net.
He told them about a play he had seen the night before, and an actress in it who had caught his fancy.
"That woman!" he said. "Good God! A fair, thin virgin—inviting with her troubled eyes the fiercest lusts—still innocent, still trembling on the threshold of her life. What an actress! Polly, you would have enjoyed her work."
"I don’t doubt it, Vincent."
"I’ll take you some evening soon. But no, I forgot. I’m going away."
"Oh, Vincent, again?" cried his mother.
He looked at her with a strange smile.
"Yes," he said, "and for a long time."
Polly, so many times hurt, so long ignored, remained quite still and indifferent. Only Angelica saw her thin fingers clench, and then open listlessly. She didn’t open her eyes or speak.
"Where?" asked his mother.