She turned her head away, as if to intimate that so far as she was concerned conversation was neither interesting nor necessary.
Judith bit back the ‘Good-night, Jennifer’ which she was about to call; for she was never going to care any more what happened to Jennifer; never again soothe her when she was weary and excited, comfort her when she was unhappy. She would look at Jennifer coldly, observe her vagaries and entanglements with a shrug, comment upon them with detached and cynical amusement: hurt her, if possible, oh, hurt her, hurt her.
Now she would leave her with Geraldine and not trouble to ask herself once what profound and secret intimacies would be restored by her withdrawal.
She smiled over her shoulder and left the room.
10
A week later, Geraldine was still there. She and Judith had not met again; when she and Jennifer, arm in arm, were seen approaching, Judith avoided them; and changing her place at Hall—her place which had been beside Jennifer for two years—went and sat where she could not see the sleek dark head next to the fair one, turning and nodding in response.
All day they were invisible. Geraldine had a car, and they must go miles and miles into the country in the soft late autumn weather.
It seemed to Judith that life had ceased to bear her along upon its tide. It flowed past her, away from her; and she must stay behind, passive and of no account, while the current of Jennifer met and gaily mingled with a fresh current and fled on. It seemed as if even the opportunity for the gesture of relinquishment was to be denied her. And then, wearily returning from lectures one morning she found upon her table a torn scrap of paper scrawled over violently in an unknown hand.
‘Please be in your room at six o’clock this evening. I want to see you.
‘Geraldine Manners.’