VIII
TERESA, in a spirit of contradiction, and the heat of argument, had chosen often to exaggerate the completeness with which she and Basil carried out that idea of frankness. She was aware of Basil's silences; and she herself was not as absolutely frank and unreserved as she sometimes assumed to be; but this arose not from her wish, but from the impossibility of translating everything into terms of speech. It would have been impossible, for example, to repeat all of her talks with Fairfax, and as these became more frequent in the course of the winter, the impossibility of telling all led her to tell little or nothing. It was not, however, because she had anything definite to conceal; but that her interest in him—and he did interest her, as a type not very familiar to her—was to a certain extent counter to her interest in Basil. The extent was slight, and did not touch her real feeling; but it absorbed a good deal of her attention. Basil was working hard that winter; they went out a good deal; and they spent less time together than ever before. Teresa was less jealous of his time. She was a little more worldly. Insensibly some sort of a veil had come between
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