A plate crashed to the ground and Violet screamed faintly. Roger, in his turn, had pushed back his chair; his round eyes were staring and rather frightened; he had never seen Stephen quite like this before. She was actually rolling up the sleeves of her smock. ‘You cad!’ she shouted, ‘I’ll fight you for this!’ And she doubled up her fist and shook it at Roger while he edged away from the table. She stood there an enraged and ridiculous figure in her Liberty smock, with her hard, boyish forearms. Her long hair had partly escaped from its ribbon, and the bow sagged down limply, crooked and foolish. All that was heavy in her face sprang into view, the strong line of the jaw, the square, massive brow, the eyebrows, too thick and too wide for beauty. And yet there was a kind of large splendour about her—absurd though she was, she was splendid at that moment—grotesque and splendid, like some primitive thing conceived in a turbulent age of transition. ‘Are you going to fight me, you coward?’ she demanded, as she stepped round the table and faced her tormentor. But Roger thrust his hands deep into his pockets: ‘I don’t fight with girls!’ he remarked very grandly. Then he sauntered out of the schoolroom. Stephen’s own hands fell and hung at her sides; her head drooped, and she stood staring down at the carpet. The whole of her suddenly drooped and looked helpless, as she stood staring down at the carpet. ‘How could you!’ began Violet, who was plucking up courage. ‘Little girls don’t have fights—I don’t, I’d be frightened—’ But Stephen cut her short: ‘I’m going,’ she said thickly; ‘I’m going home to my father.’ She went heavily downstairs and out into the lobby, where she put on her hat and coat; then she made her way round the house to the stables, in search of old Williams and the dog-cart. 4 ‘You’re home very early, Stephen,’ said Anna, but Sir Philip was staring at his daughter’s face. ‘What’s the matter?’ he inquired, and his voice sounded anxious. ‘Come here and tell me about it.’ Then Stephen quite suddenly burst into tears, and she wept and she wept as she stood there before them, and she poured out her shame and humiliation, telling all that Roger had said about her mother, telling all that she, Stephen, would have done to defend her, had it not been that Roger would not fight with a girl. She wept and she wept without any restraint, scarcely knowing what she said—at that moment not caring. And Sir Philip listened with his head on his hand, and Anna listened bewildered and dumbfounded. She tried to kiss Stephen, to hold her to her, but Stephen, still sobbing, pushed her away; in this orgy of grief she resented consolation, so that in the end Anna took her to the nursery and delivered her over to the care of Mrs. Bingham, feeling that the child did not want her.