Now she would leave her with Geraldine and not trouble to ask herself once what profound and secret intimacies would be restored by her withdrawal. She smiled over her shoulder and left the room. 10 A week later, Geraldine was still there. She and Judith had not met again; when she and Jennifer, arm in arm, were seen approaching, Judith avoided them; and changing her place at Hall--her place which had been beside Jennifer for two years--went and sat where she could not see the sleek dark head next to the fair one, turning and nodding in response. All day they were invisible. Geraldine had a car, and they must go miles and miles into the country in the soft late autumn weather. It seemed to Judith that life had ceased to bear her along upon its tide. It flowed past her, away from her; and she must stay behind, passive and of no account, while the current of Jennifer met and gaily mingled with a fresh current and fled on. It seemed as if even the opportunity for the gesture of relinquishment was to be denied her. And then, wearily returning from lectures one morning she found upon her table a torn scrap of paper scrawled over violently in an unknown hand. ‘_Please be in your room at six o’clock this evening. I want to see you._ ‘_Geraldine Manners._’ It was an insolent note. She would ignore such a command. She would put a notice up on her door: _Engaged_--and turn the key; and when the woman came she would just have to go away again. But at six o’clock Geraldine knocked loudly and she cried: ‘Come in.’ They stood facing each other. ‘Sit down,’ said Judith. But neither of them made any movement. ‘I wanted to see you.’ Her voice was low and emotional--angry perhaps; and Judith had a moment’s fainting sense of impotence. The woman was so magnificent, so mature and well-dressed; if there was to be a fight, what chance was there for a thin young student in a woollen jumper? She leaned against the mantelpiece and, staring at Judith, flung at her: ‘What’s all this about?’ Judith sat down again, without a word, and waited, steadily holding the green eyes with her own. She heard the blood beat deafeningly in her ears. Geraldine went on: ‘I think it’s the damnedest bit of impertinence I ever heard. Schoolgirls! My God!’ She flung her head back theatrically. Judith thought, with a shudder of excitement and anguish: ‘Wait, wait. It is because you are unused to it that it seems like physical blows. Soon you will be able to collect yourself. This is anger and you are the cause. You are being insulted and called to account for the first time in your life. Carry it off. Carry it off.’ And her blood went on repeating ‘Jennifer’ in her ears. Geraldine took a gold cigarette case and the amber holder from a gold chain bag with a sapphire clasp. ‘It’s pretty awful, isn’t it, to be so mean and petty? I’m sorry for you, I must say.’