"You can say what you like," Sophia retorted, adding
contemptuously a term of opprobrium which has long since passed
out of use: "Cant!"
"Will you give it me or won't you?"
"No!"
It was a battle suddenly engaged in the bedroom. The atmosphere
had altered completely with the swiftness of magic. The beauty of
Sophia, the angelic tenderness of Constance, and the youthful,
naive, innocent charm of both of them, were transformed into
something sinister and cruel. Sophia lay back on the pillow amid
her dark-brown hair, and gazed with relentless defiance into the
angry eyes of Constance, who stood threatening by the bed. They
could hear the gas singing over the dressing-table, and their
hearts beating the blood wildly in their veins. They ceased to be
young without growing old; the eternal had leapt up in them from
its sleep.
Constance walked away from the bed to the dressing-table and began
to loose her hair and brush it, holding back her head, shaking it,
and bending forward, in the changeless gesture of that rite. She
was so disturbed that she had unconsciously reversed the customary
order of the toilette. After a moment Sophia slipped out of bed
and, stepping with her bare feet to the chest of drawers, opened
her work-box and deposited the fragment of Mr.
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