The whole thing puzzled me. For Basil said nothing, but looked dejected and beaten, somehow. And yet he had always believed that women should vote.
We found Poppy in her studio, but Viv's workroom below was empty and the door into the passage stood open. His desk was orderly and his pens in a row. It looked queer. Poppy was painting, standing before a huge canvas and looking very smeary; she gave me a cheek to kiss, and she was thin! Positively thin!
"You're looking very fit, Maggie," she said, without a smile. "We've missed her, haven't we, Basil?"
Basil grunted something. Suddenly it occurred to me that he and Poppy hardly glanced at one another, and that he was still holding his hat and gloves. Their constraint, and Viv not around and everything—I was very uncomfortable. Of course, if Basil cared for Poppy and I used to think he did, and if Vivian had found it out—
"No, thanks, Poppy," said Basil, "I'll—I'll drop in again."
"Crumpets for tea!" said Poppy. They'd engaged the cook for her crumpets.
"Thanks awfully," Basil muttered and having said something about seeing me again very soon, he got out. I stared after him. Could this be Basil the arrogant? Basil the abject? This brooding individual who did nothing but stare at me as if he were trying to work something out!
Poppy came over to me, with her fists in the pockets of her painting apron, and looked down at me.
"Frightened, like all the rest!" she said. "They say I'm responsible for hundreds of broken engagements! They made the law themselves, and now, when they see it in operation, they squeal."
It came over me then; Poppy's strained eyes, and her painting without a cigarette, and Basil looking so queer.