"Why aren't you more talkative, Alex?... You haven't been for a long time."
"Haven't I?"
"You never talk, at home ... to the others. Only once in a way to me ... when we are alone. It was after Alkmaar that you became so silent. It wasn't surely because I was angry at the time?"
"Perhaps, partly...."
"Well?"
"I daren't tell you."
"Tell me, Alex, if there is anything I can do for you."
"You do so much as it is, Addie.... You do everything."
"But speak quite openly. Perhaps there is something more that I can do for you."
"No, what could there be?"