I'm enclosing the money for your tips as I shan't see you in the morning. Give three pounds to the butler, a pound to the maid who's been valeting you, and ten shillings to the chauffeur.

JULIA.

She sent for Evie and gave instructions that the letter should be given to Tom by the maid who awoke him. When she went down to dinner she felt much better. She carried on an animated conversation with Michael while they dined and afterwards they played six pack bezique.* If she had racked her brains for a week she couldn't have thought of anything that would humiliate Tom more bitterly.

But when she went to bed she could not sleep. She was waiting for Roger and Tom to come home. A notion came to her that made her restless. Perhaps Tom would realize that he had behaved rottenly, if he gave it a moment's thought he must see how unhappy he was making her; it might be that he would be sorry and when he came in, after he had said good night to Roger, he would creep down to her room. If he did that she would forgive everything. The letter was probably in the butler's pantry; she could easily slip down and get it back. At last a car drove up. She turned on her light to lookat the time. It was three. She heard the two young men go upstairs and to their respective rooms. She waited. She put on the light by her bedside so that when he opened the door he should be able to see. She would pretend she was sleeping and then as he crept forward on tiptoe slowly open her eyes and smile at him. She waited. In the silent night she heard him get into bed and switch off the light. She stared straight in front of her for a minute, then with a shrug of the shoulders opened a drawer by her bedside and from a little bottle took a couple of sleeping-tablets. "If I don't sleep I shall go mad."

15

JULIA did not wake till after eleven. Among her letters was one that had not come by post. She recognized Tom's neat, commercial hand and tore it open. It contained nothing but the four pounds and the ten-shilling note. She felt slightly sick. She did not quite know what she had expected him to reply to her condescending letter and the humiliating present. It had not occurred to her that he would return it. She was troubled, she had wanted to hurt his feelings, but she had a fear now that she had gone too far.

"Anyhow I hope he tipped the servants," she muttered to reassure herself. She shrugged her shoulders. "He'll come round. It won't hurt him to discover that I'm not all milk and honey."

But she remained thoughtful throughout the day. When she got to the theatre a parcel was waiting for her. As soon as she looked at the address she knew what it contained. Evie asked if she should open it.

"No."

But the moment she was alone she opened it herself. There were the cuff-links and the waistcoat buttons, the pearl studs, the wrist-watch and the cigarette-case of which Tom was so proud. All the presents she had ever given him. But no letter. Not a word of explanation. Her heart sank and she noticed that she was trembling.

"What a damned fool I was! Why didn't I keep my temper?"

Her heart now beat painfully. She couldn't go on the stage with that anguish gnawing at her vitals, she would give a frightful performance; at whatever cost she must speak to him. There was a telephone in his house and an extension to his room. She rang him. Fortunately he was in.

"Tom."

"Yes?"

He had paused for a moment before answering and his voice was peevish.

"What does this mean? Why have you sent me all those things?"

"Did you get the notes this morning?"

"Yes. I couldn't make head or tail of it. Have I offended you?"

"Oh no," he answered. "I like being treated like a kept boy. I like having it thrown in my face that even my tips have to be given me. I thought it rather strange that you didn't send me the money for a third-class ticket back to London."

Although Julia was in a pitiable state of anxiety, so that she could hardly get the words out of her mouth, she almost smiled at his fatuous irony. He was a silly little thing.

"But you can't imagine that I wanted to hurt your feelings. You surely know me well enough to know that's the last thing I should do."

"That only makes it worse." ("Damn and curse," thought Julia.) "I ought never to have let you make me those presents. I should never have let you lend me money."

"I don't know what you mean. It's all some horrible misunderstanding. Come and fetch me after the play and we'll have it out. I know I can explain."

"I'm going to dinner with my people and I shall sleep at home."

"Tomorrow then."

"I'm engaged tomorrow."

"I must see you, Tom. We've been too much to one another to part like this. You can't condemn me unheard. It's so unjust to punish me for no fault of mine."

"I think it's much better that we shouldn't meet again."

Julia was growing desperate.

"But I love you, Tom. I love you. Let me see you once more and then, if you're still angry with me, we'll call it a day."

There was a long pause before he answered.

"All right. I'll come after the matinee on Wednesday."

"Don't think unkindly of me, Tom."

She put down the receiver. At all events he was coming. She wrapped up again the things he had returned to her, and hid them away where she was pretty sure Evie would not see them. She undressed, put on her old pink dressing-gown and began to make-up. She was out of humour: this was the first time she had ever told him that she loved him. It vexed her that she had been forced to humiliate herself by begging him to come and see her. Till then it had always been he who sought her company. She was not pleased to think that the situation between them now was openly reversed.

Julia gave a very poor performance at the matinee on Wednesday. The heat wave had affected business and the house was apathetic. Julia was indifferent. With that sickness of apprehension gnawing at her heart she could not care how the play went. ("What the hell do they want to come to the theatre for on a day like this anyway?") She was glad when it was over.

"I'm expecting Mr. Fennell," she told Evie. "While he's here I don't want to be disturbed."

Evie did not answer. Julia gave her a glance and saw that she was looking grim.

("To hell with her. What do Icare what she thinks!")

He ought to have been there by now. It was after five. He was bound to come; after all, he'd promised, hadn't he? She put on a dressing-gown, not the one she made up in, but a man's dressing-gown, in plum-coloured silk. Evie took an interminable time to put things straight.

"For God's sake don't fuss, Evie. Leave me alone."

Evie did not speak. She went on methodically arranging the various objects on the dressing-table exactly as Julia always wanted them.

"Why the devil don't you answer when 'I speak to you?"

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. Fen-nell. Julia held out a white, thin hand.

"Fm 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.