Looking up from it, she saw Basil standing at the door. He was flushed, and looked cross; she knew of old the sulky set of his brows and mouth, that made him look like a petulant boy. It hurt Alix so much that she couldn't muster any sort of smile, only look away from him and say, 'I'm sorry; Nicky's not in yet.'
He said 'No,' abstractedly, and sat down in the chair on the other side of the fire. He sat in the attitude she had seen him in a thousand times (it seemed to her) before; his elbow resting on his knee, his hand supporting his chin, the other hand, with its maimed third finger, hanging at his side. She had seen him sitting thus happy, intimately talking; she had seen him moody and brooding, as now. There had been a time when she could always lighten these moods, tickle his sullenness to laughter; but that time was past.
He said presently, 'I'm off to-morrow, you know.'
'Yes,' said Alix, who did know.
In her another knowledge grew: the knowledge that if he did not speak of Evie she could get through this interview without disgrace, but that if he did speak of Evie she could not. She did not want him to speak of Evie and break down the wall between them; yet she did want it.
He did speak of Evie. He said he had been to Violette to say good-bye.
'I said it to the whole family together. Evie wouldn't see me alone.... I suppose she doesn't really care a hang. In fact, she's made that very obvious for the last fortnight.'
'Yes,' said Alix again, clinging to that one small word as to a raft in a stormy sea, which might yet float her through.
Basil pushed the tongs with his foot, so that they made a clattering noise in the grate.
'She doesn't care a hang,' he repeated. 'She's on with that jam fellow now. Well, every one to his taste. Hugh Montgomery Gordon obviously appeals to hers.'