When her hand was refused, June put it behind her.  Her eyes grew steady with anger; she waited for Irene to speak; and thus waiting, took in, with who-knows-what rage of jealousy, suspicion, and curiosity, every detail of her friend’s face and dress and figure.

Irene was clothed in her long grey fur; the travelling cap on her head left a wave of gold hair visible above her forehead.  The soft fullness of the coat made her face as small as a child’s.

Unlike June’s cheeks, her cheeks had no colour in them, but were ivory white and pinched as if with cold.  Dark circles lay round her eyes.  In one hand she held a bunch of violets.

She looked back at June, no smile on her lips; and with those great dark eyes fastened on her, the girl, for all her startled anger, felt something of the old spell.

She spoke first, after all.

“What have you come for?” But the feeling that she herself was being asked the same question, made her add:  “This horrible case.  I came to tell him—­he has lost it.”

Irene did not speak, her eyes never moved from June’s face, and the girl cried: 

“Don’t stand there as if you were made of stone!”

Irene laughed:  “I wish to God I were!”

But June turned away:  “Stop!” she cried, “don’t tell me!  I don’t want to hear!  I don’t want to hear what you’ve come for.  I don’t want to hear!” And like some uneasy spirit, she began swiftly walking to and fro.  Suddenly she broke out: 

“I was here first.  We can’t both stay here together!”

On Irene’s face a smile wandered up, and died out like a flicker of firelight.  She did not move.  And then it was that June perceived under the softness and immobility of this figure something desperate and resolved; something not to be turned away, something dangerous.  She tore off her hat, and, putting both hands to her brow, pressed back the bronze mass of her hair.

“You have no right here!” she cried defiantly.

Irene answered:  “I have no right anywhere!

“What do you mean?”

“I have left Soames.  You always wanted me to!”

June put her hands over her ears.

“Don’t!  I don’t want to hear anything—­I don’t want to know anything.  It’s impossible to fight with you!  What makes you stand like that?  Why don’t you go?”

Irene’s lips moved; she seemed to be saying:  “Where should I go?”

June turned to the window.  She could see the face of a clock down in the street.  It was nearly four.  At any moment he might come!  She looked back across her shoulder, and her face was distorted with anger.

But Irene had not moved; in her gloved hands she ceaselessly turned and twisted the little bunch of violets.

The tears of rage and disappointment rolled down June’s cheeks.

“How could you come?” she said.  “You have been a false friend to me!”