‘Yes.’
She was determined to make him say it, but when he did the pang it gave her was dreadful.
Notwithstanding, she smiled good-humouredly.
‘We’ve had some very jolly times together, but don’t you think the moment has come to call it a day?’
She spoke so naturally, almost jestingly, that no one could have guessed that the pain at her heart seemed past bearing.
She waited for his answer with sickening dread.
‘I’m awfully sorry, Julia; I must regain my self-respect.’
He looked at her with troubled eyes.
‘You aren’t angry with me?’
‘Because you’ve transferred your volatile affections from me to Avice Crichton?’
Her eyes danced with mischievous laughter.
‘My dear, of course not.
After all they stay in the profession.’
‘I’m very grateful to you for all you’ve done for me.
I don’t want you to think I’m not.’
‘Oh, my pet, don’t talk such nonsense.
I’ve done nothing for you.’
She got up.
‘Now you really must go.
You’ve got a heavy day at the office tomorrow and I’m dog-tired.’
It was a load off his mind.
But he wasn’t quite happy for all that, he was puzzled by her tone, which was so friendly and yet at the same time faintly ironical; he felt a trifle let down.
He went up to her to kiss her good night.
She hesitated for the fraction of a second, then with a friendly smile gave him first one cheek and then the other.
‘You’ll find your way out, won’t you?’
She put her hand to her mouth to hide an elaborate yawn.
‘Oh, I’m so sleepy.’
The moment he had gone she turned out the lights and went to the window.
She peered cautiously through the curtains.
She heard him slam the front door and saw him come out.
He looked right and left.
She guessed at once that he was looking for a taxi.
There was none in sight and he started to walk in the direction of the Park.
She knew that he was going to join Avice Crichton at the supper party and tell her the glad news.
Julia sank into a chair.
She had acted, she had acted marvellously, and now she felt all in.
Tears, tears that nobody could see, rolled down her cheeks.
She was miserably unhappy.
There was only one thing that enabled her to bear her wretchedness, and that was the icy contempt that she could not but feel for the silly boy who could prefer to her a small-part actress who didn’t even begin to know how to act.
It was grotesque.
She couldn’t use her hands; why, she didn’t even know how to walk across the stage.
‘If I had any sense of humour I’d just laugh my head off,’ she cried,
‘It’s the most priceless joke I’ve ever heard.’
She wondered what Tom would do now.
The rent of the flat would be falling due on quarter-day.
A lot of the things in it belonged to her.
He wouldn’t much like going back to his bed-sitting room in Tavistock Square.
She thought of the friends he had made through her.
He’d been clever with them. They found him useful and he’d keep them.
But it wouldn’t be so easy for him to take Avice about.