She smiled at him, thinking how she loved the feel of her own body moving obediently, the satisfaction of achieving a perfect stroke, the look of young bodies in play and in repose,—especially his; and she hazarded:
‘I love it just for the movement. I love movement,—the look of people in motion and the thought and feel of my own movements. I suppose I am too solemn over it. I want so much to do it as well as I can. I’m solemn because I’m excited. I sometimes think I would like above all things to be the best dancer in the world,—or the best acrobat; or failing that, to watch dancers and acrobats for ever.’
Looking back on their few but significant conversations, she decided that there was something about him which invited confidences while seeming to repel them. Though his response—if it came at all or came save in silent laughter—was uncoloured by enthusiasm and unsweetened by sympathy, he made her feel that he understood and even pondered in secret over her remarks.
‘There are some things I tell you, Roddy, that I tell no one else. They make themselves be told. Often I haven’t known they were inside me.’ She rehearsed this silently. One day she would say it aloud to him.
Then she had added:
‘Do you still caricature, Roddy?’
‘Now and then,—when I feel like it.’
‘It is funny how a caricature impresses a likeness on you far quicker and more lastingly than a good portrait. Do you remember you once did one of me when we were little and I cried?’
‘Do you see everybody with their imperfections exaggerated—always?’