"She's made safe, you see," said Fleur.
June handed back the letter.
"That's not fair to Irene; she always told Jon he could do as he wished."
Fleur smiled bitterly. "Didn't she spoil your life too?"
"Nobody can spoil a life, my dear. That's nonsense. Things happen, but we bob up."
Then with a sort of terror she saw the girl sink on her knees and bury her face in the djibbah, with a strangled sob.
"It's all right—all right," June murmured: "Don't! There, there!"
But the point of the girl's chin was pressed ever closer into her thigh, and the sound was dreadful of her sobbing. Well, well! It had to come. She would feel better afterwards! June stroked the short hair of that shapely head and all the scattered mother-sense in her focussed itself and passed through the tips of her fingers into the girl's brain.
"Don't sit down under it, my dear," she said at last. "We can't control life, but we can fight it. Make the best of things. I've had to. I held on, like you; and I cried, as you're crying now. And look at me!"
Fleur raised her head; a sob merged suddenly into a little choked laugh. In truth it was a thin and rather wild and wasted spirit she was looking at, but it had brave eyes.