Evie turned round and looked at her.
She thoughtfully rubbed her finger along her nostrils.
‘Great actress you may be…’
‘Get the hell out of here.’
After taking off her stage make-up Julia had done nothing to her face except put the very faintest shading of blue under her eyes.
She had a smooth, pale skin and without rouge on her cheeks or red on her lips she looked wan.
The man’s dressing-gown gave an effect at once helpless, fragile and gallant.
Her heart was beating painfully and she was very anxious, but looking at herself in the glass she murmured: Mimi in the last act of Boheme.
Almost without meaning to she coughed once or twice consumptively.
She turned off the bright lights on her dressing-table and lay down on the sofa.
Presently there was a knock on the door and Evie announced Mr Fennell.
Julia held out a white, thin hand.
‘I’m lying down. I’m afraid I’m not very well.
Find yourself a chair.
It’s nice of you to come.’
‘I’m sorry.
What’s the matter?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ She forced a smile to her ashy lips.
‘I haven’t been sleeping very well the last two or three nights.’
She turned her beautiful eyes on him and for a while gazed at him in silence.
His expression was sullen, but she had a notion that he was frightened.
‘I’m waiting for you to tell me what you’ve got against me,’ she said at last in a low voice.
It trembled a little, she noticed, but quite naturally. (‘Christ, I believe I’m frightened too.’)
‘There’s no object in going back to that.
The only thing I wanted to say to you was this: I’m afraid I can’t pay you the two hundred pounds I owe you right away. I simply haven’t got it, but I’ll pay you by degrees.
I hate having to ask you to give me time, but I can’t help myself.’
She sat up on the sofa and put both her hands to her breaking heart.
‘I don’t understand.
I’ve lain awake for two whole nights turning it all over in my mind.
I thought I should go mad.
I’ve been trying to understand.
I can’t.
I can’t.’ (‘What play did I say that in?’)
‘Oh yes, you can, you understand perfectly.
You were angry with me and you wanted to get back on me.
And you did.
You got back on me all right.
You couldn’t have shown your contempt for me more clearly.’
‘But why should I want to get back on you?
Why should I be angry with you?’
‘Because I went to Maidenhead with Roger to that party and you wanted me to come home.’
‘But I told you to go.
I said I hoped you’d have a good time.’
‘I know you did, but your eyes were blazing with passion.
I didn’t want to go, but Roger was keen on it.
I told him I thought we ought to come back and dine with you and Michael, but he said you’d be glad to have us off your hands, and I didn’t like to make a song and dance about it.
And when I saw you were in a rage it was too late to get out of it.’
‘I wasn’t in a rage.
I can’t think how you got such an idea in your head.
It was so natural that you should want to go to the party.