It was while looking at the spot where the piece of Japanese pottery had stood that she felt a strange certainty of being watched, and, turning, saw Irene in the open doorway.
The two stood gazing at each other for a minute in silence; then June walked forward and held out her hand. Irene did not take it.
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 Jun’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 Jun’s face, and the girl cried:
“Don’t stand there as if you were made of stone!”