Alix's hands were clasped tight over her knee. Her knuckles were white. She kept her eyes on the fire. She would not look at him.
'Yes,' she said.
Then silence fell between them, and though she would not look she felt his nearness, knew how he sat, angry and sullen, brooding over his hurt.
A coal fell from the fire. Alix, as if some one was physically forcing her, raised her eyes from it and looked at Basil, and knew then that she was not going to get through this interview without disgrace. For she saw him sit as she had seen him sit (it seemed to her) a thousand times before, inert, bent forward a little, with the shadows leaping and flickering on his thin olive face and vivid eyes, with one hand supporting his sharp-cut chin, the other hanging maimed (and that alone was something new, belonging to the cruel present not the kindly past) at his side. It seemed that those lean, quick, brown artist's fingers were dragging her soul from her. The sharp sense of all those other times when she and he had thus sat stabbed her like a turning-knife. A thousand intimacies rose to shatter her, and, so shattered, she spoke.
'She doesn't care a hang.' She repeated his phrase, mechanically, sitting very still. 'But I do.'
Then she leant towards him, putting out her hands, and a sob caught in her throat.
'Oh, Basil—I do.'
For a moment the silence was only broken by the leaping, stirring fire.
Basil looked swiftly at Alix, and Alix saw horror in his eyes before he veiled it. The next moment it was veiled: veiled by his quick friendly smile. He leant forward and took her outstretched hands in his, and spoke lightly, easily. He did it well; few people could have attained at once to such ease, such spontaneous naturalness of affection.
'Why, of course—I know. The way you and I care for each other is one of the best things I've got in my life. It lasts, too, when the other sorts of caring go phut....'