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Rosalind came in, lovely in a white dress cut low enough to startle the Purefoy world. Janet was in black, a necklace of small pearls round her throat.

"Rosalind—you never turned up at lunch after all."

"No, darling, I couldn't. I'd have telephoned but.... How grand you look. Carrying yourself like a queen, the papers would say."

"Yes, you might have telephoned. Why didn't you?"

Rosalind's eyes were restless, saying, "Oh where can I escape?" She hated more than any other thing in her life these moods of Janet's.

"I don't know why I didn't. Oh, Janet, don't be tiresome. Not to-night. And I'm so sick of 'Where have you been? Why didn't you? What were you doing?' Can't you see how irritating it is?"

Janet's voice trembled. "And can't you see how selfish you are? Doesn't it occur to you that these last days—the last that we shall have alone—matter to me, that I want to be with you, and that you are always escaping me?"

"Yes, I am escaping you if you want to know. Just because you bother so. Why can't you let it all be natural? You are always forcing everything. You are natural enough with other people. Why not with me?"