‘Oh, don’t you feel how you might long to say to someone you love: I give you all myself, all myself--and all the time be sad because with all your efforts and longing you _know_ you never could--that the core can’t ever be stirred at all? It seems such dreadful arrogance to say--’ she stopped short, pressing her hand to her lips, shutting her eyes. After a pause she added quickly: ‘But I don’t doubt you love her ...’ she sighed. ‘Thank God this term is nearly over. This is a terrible place for getting overwrought.’ Geraldine seemed to be thinking deeply. Her face was awake and preoccupied behind its heavy mask. ‘It’s very odd,’ said Judith, ‘how she doesn’t value her brains in the very least--isn’t interested in them--can’t be bothered. I suppose you know she’s the most brilliant history student of her year. Easily. Of course she’s never worked, but she could have done anything she liked. In spite of all her idleness and irresponsibility they were still excited about her--they thought she’d do something in the end. And I was going to make her pull it off. I could have--in one term. I mean I could have once. Not now of course.’ Her voice ceased drearily. As if it would matter to Geraldine how much Jennifer wasted brains, or academic opportunities ... as if it would move her! The bell started to ring for Hall. ‘There!’ said Judith, ‘I must brush my hair I suppose, and go down. Are you coming to Hall?’ ‘No. I’m going to dine in Cambridge.’ Judith rose and stood before her, looking full at her for the last time. She thought suddenly: ‘But she’s not beautiful! She’s hideously ugly, repulsive.’ That broad heavy face and thick neck, those coarse and masculine features, that hothouse skin: What taste Jennifer must have to find her attractive!... Oh no, it was no good saying that. In spite of all, she was beautiful: her person held an appalling fascination. She was beautiful, beautiful. You would never be able to forget her face, her form. You would see it and dream of it with painful desire: as if she could satisfy something, some hunger, if she would. But she was not for you. The secret of her magnetism, her rareness must be for ever beyond reach; but not beyond imagination. Judith cried out inwardly: ‘Tell me all your life!’ All about herself, where she had come from, why she was alone and mysterious, why she wore such clothes, such pearls, how she and Jennifer had met, what knowledge her expression half-hid, half-revealed. Time had swept her down one moment out of space, portentously, and now was sweeping her away again, unknown. And now, in the end, you wanted to implore her to stay, to let herself be known, to let you love her. Yes, to let you love her. It was not true that you must hate your enemies. What was all this hatred and jealousy? Something so terrifyingly near to love, you dared not contemplate it. You could love her in a moment, passionately, for her voice, her eyes, her beautiful white hands, for loving Jennifer--anything.