told you last night," she said bitterly.
"We shan't see each--"

"Oh yes, I know that. But do you think he means it?"

"I'm sure he does."

"I'm not."

Sally unpinned a coil of her hair and re-arranged it more carefully,
unconscious that she did it because Janet had suggested the vague
hope in her mind that he might come.

"Why are you so different this morning?" she asked.

Janet brushed away a piece of glowing ash that had fallen like a cloud
of dust into one of the hollows below her neck.

"Didn't know I was very different."

"You are."

"Well, I've been thinking--" She threw the end of her cigarette away
and jumped out of bed, walking on her heels over the cold, linoleumed
floor to the washstand. "I've been thinking," she repeated as she
poured out the cold water into the basin--"and as far as I can
see"--she dipped her face with a rush into the icy water, and her
words became a gurgle of speeding bubbles--"there was really no need
for all your crying and misery--heavens! this water'd nip a tenderer
bud than I am. Ain't I a bud, Sally?" She laughed and shivered her
shoulders as she struggled to work the soap into a lather.

"I never can understand you when you talk like that," said Sally.
"I never know whether you really mean what you say."

"Well, I mean every word of it. It's the only time I do mean things,
when I talk like that. Where'd you put the towel? We want a clean
towel, Sally. I sopped up some tea I spilt with this last night.
No--but can't you see, there's no need for you to be so miserable
as you think. Men only make a sacrifice when they really love a woman.
He'll come back to you, like a duck to the water. You know he will.
Do you think if he'd cared for you at all, he'd have given tuppence
whether he taught you what most men teach most women. The only woman
a man thinks he has no real claim to, is the woman he loves; he
believes he has a proprietary right to nearly every other blessed
one he meets, and has only got to assert it."

"How do you know these things, Janet? What makes you say them?"

"You mean who's taught me them--eh? What man has ever taken a
sufficient interest in me to show me so much of his sex? Isn't that
what you mean?"

"No!"

"Oh, I know I'm ugly enough. That glass has a habit of reminding me
of it every morning. I could smash that glass sometimes with the back
of a hair-brush, only it might break the hair-brush."

"Janet, you're cruel sometimes! Things like