She broke off, staring, uncomfortably, at a situation really beyond her powers.
Her cogitations ended in, 'Well, I think you might have told me at first. I thought you and he were just good friends. I didn't want him. I wouldn't have let him come near me if I'd known it was like that. I never do that sort of thing. Now do I, Alix? You've never seen me mean to other girls like that, have you? I never have been and I never will be.... I don't want him. You can have him back.'
Alix giggled suddenly, irrepressibly.
'What's the matter now?' said Evie.
'Nothing. Only the way you talk of Basil—handing him about as if he was a kitten. He's not, you know.'
Evie smiled grudgingly. 'Well, anyhow I don't want him. Particularly if he doesn't mean anything, as you say.... It isn't every one I'd believe if they told me that; they might be jealous or spiteful or something. But I don't believe you'd say it, Al, if you didn't think it was true'—(Alix said, 'Oh,' on a soft, indrawn breath)—'and you know him, so I expect you're right. And I'm not going on playing round with a man who makes love like he does and doesn't mean anything. It isn't respectable.'
'Oh—respectable.' Alix laughed, again, shakily; it was such a funny word in this connection, and so like Violette.
'Well, I don't see it's funny,' said Evie. 'It's awfully important to be respectable, and I always am. I'll be good pals with any number of men, but when they begin to get like Basil Doye I won't have it unless they mean something.'
Thus Evie enunciated her code, and washed her hands and face and put on her dress and went downstairs. At the door she paused for a moment and looked back at Alix.
'I say, Al—I'm awfully sorry. I didn't mean to be a sneak, you know; I wouldn't have, if I'd known.'