Now the light would go on.
It went on. The room suddenly revealed its confusion of girls, cushions, chairs, cups, plates and cigarette-ends. Everybody was getting up, standing about and talking.
Jennifer was on her feet, voluble, calling loud good-nights. They made a group round her and round somebody still sitting on the floor beside her. Judith caught a glimpse of a dark head leaning motionless against the mantelpiece. Now they were all going away. Judith followed them slowly to the door and there paused, looking over her shoulder towards the fireplace.
‘Stay,’ said Jennifer shrilly. She was standing and staring at Judith with wild eyes; pale, with a deep patch of colour in each cheek, and lips parted.
‘No, I must go. I’ve got some work,’ said Judith, smiling over her shoulder. She let her eyes drop from Jennifer’s face to the other one.
At last it confronted her, the silent-looking face, watching behind its narrowed eyes. The hair was black, short, brushed straight back from the forehead, leaving small beautiful ears exposed. The heavy eyebrows came low and level on the low broad brow; the eyes were long slits, dark-circled, the cheeks were pale, the jaw heavy and masculine. All the meaning of the face was concentrated in the mouth, the strange wide lips laid rather flat on the face, sulky, passionate, weary, eager. She was not a young girl. It was the face of a woman of thirty or more; but in years she might have been younger. She was tall, deep-breasted, with long, heavy but shapely limbs. She wore a black frock and a pearl necklace, and large pearl earrings.
Judith said politely:
‘Is this the first time you have been here?’
‘No.’ She laughed. Her voice was an insolent voice.
‘I’m tired,’ said Jennifer suddenly, like a child.