June Mason was mixing perfume the following morning when a little knock came at her door.
She looked up from her work and listened; after a second she resumed her occupation briskly.
“Come in,” she said.
She did not raise her eyes when the door opened, though she knew quite well who had entered the room, and for a second Esther Shepstone stood on the threshold hesitatingly, then she spoke.
“May I come in?”
June Mason looked up with an exaggerated start; she was a picturesque figure at that moment in a big white overall, and with a scarf of her favourite mauve tied over her dark head.
She held a little phial in either hand, and there was a delicious faint smell of rose perfume in the room.
“You!” she said. “Gracious! I thought you were dead and buried long enough ago. Oh yes, come in.... 82 You don’t mind me going on with my work, do you? I’m up to my eyes in it.... Sit down.”
But Esther stood where she was, the eagerness died out of her pretty face.
“I won’t stay if you’re busy,” she said. “I’ll come another time, but–––” she hesitated. Across the room the eyes of the two girls met, and June Mason promptly put down the two little phials.