There were such. There might be many. But Alix looked at them far off, herself a broken, nerve-wracked, frightened child, grabbing at other people's things to comfort herself, ashamed but outrageous.
'There seems no way out,' said Alix, and looked, as she changed her frock, down vistas of degradation.
Downstairs Florence rang the supper bell. The smell of Welsh rarebit drifted through Violette. That, anyhow, was something; Alix liked it.
CHAPTER XII
ALIX AND BASIL
1
Evie had a good time for the rest of the week of Captain Gordon's leave. Mrs. Frampton began to wonder whether this enormously wealthy and overwhelmingly well-dressed young man really meant anything. If you could tell anything by the size of the chocolate boxes he sent, he certainly meant quite a lot. Kate looked repressive when they arrived.
'How Evie does go on,' she said to Mrs. Frampton at breakfast, before Evie came down, referring to the immense box from Buszard's by Evie's plate. That was the morning after Hugh Montgomery Gordon had returned to his duties in France. Apparently whatever else he meant, he meant not to be forgotten.
'She's a naughty girl,' Mrs. Frampton admitted indulgently. 'I shouldn't wonder if that's from this new friend of hers, Captain Gordon. He looks such an extravagant man. But very handsome.... What does your brother think of Captain Gordon, Alix? Didn't you say he knew him?'