In the afternoon she was overtaken by a desperate fit of sobbing.  She strangled the noise against the pillows of her bed, but when at last it ceased she saw in the glass a swollen face with reddened eyes, and violet circles round them.  She stayed in the darkened room till dinner time.

All through that silent meal the struggle went on within her.

She looked so shadowy and exhausted that old Jolyon told ‘Sankey’ to countermand the carriage, he would not have her going out....  She was to go to bed!  She made no resistance.  She went up to her room, and sat in the dark.  At ten o’clock she rang for her maid.

“Bring some hot water, and go down and tell Mr. Forsyte that I feel perfectly rested.  Say that if he’s too tired I can go to the dance by myself.”

The maid looked askance, and June turned on her imperiously.  “Go,” she said, “bring the hot water at once!”

Her ball-dress still lay on the sofa, and with a sort of fierce care she arrayed herself, took the flowers in her hand, and went down, her small face carried high under its burden of hair.  She could hear old Jolyon in his room as she passed.

Bewildered and vexed, he was dressing.  It was past ten, they would not get there till eleven; the girl was mad.  But he dared not cross her—­the expression of her face at dinner haunted him.

With great ebony brushes he smoothed his hair till it shone like silver under the light; then he, too, came out on the gloomy staircase.

June met him below, and, without a word, they went to the carriage.

When, after that drive which seemed to last for ever, she entered Roger’s drawing-room, she disguised under a mask of resolution a very torment of nervousness and emotion.  The feeling of shame at what might be called ‘running after him’ was smothered by the dread that he might not be there, that she might not see him after all, and by that dogged resolve—­somehow, she did not know how—­to win him back.

The sight of the ballroom, with its gleaming floor, gave her a feeling of joy, of triumph, for she loved dancing, and when dancing she floated, so light was she, like a strenuous, eager little spirit.  He would surely ask her to dance, and if he danced with her it would all be as it was before.  She looked about her eagerly.

The sight of Bosinney coming with Irene from the conservatory, with that strange look of utter absorption on his face, struck her too suddenly.  They had not seen—­no one should see—­her distress, not even her grandfather.

She put her hand on Jolyon’s arm, and said very low: 

“I must go home, Gran; I feel ill.”

He hurried her away, grumbling to himself that he had known how it would be.

To her he said nothing; only when they were once more in the carriage, which by some fortunate chance had lingered near the door, he asked her:  “What is it, my darling?”