They are very pushing people."
"How delicious it must feel!" Elfrida said. Her words
were more like those of their ordinary relation, but her
tone and manner had the aloofness of the merest
acquaintance. Janet felt a slow anger grow up in her. It
was intolerable, this dictation of their relation. Elfrida
desired a change--she should have it, but not at her
caprice. Janet's innate dominance rose up and asserted
a superior right to make the terms between them, and all
the hidden jar, the unacknowledged contempt, the irritation,
the hurt and the stress of the year that had passed rushed
in from banishment and gained possession of her. She took
just an appreciable instant to steady herself, and then
her gray eyes regarded Elfrida with a calm remoteness in
them which gave the other girl a quick impression of
having done more than she meant to do, gone too far to
return. Their glances met, and Elfrida's eyes, unquiet
and undecided, dropped before Janet's. Already she had
a vibrant regret.
"You enjoyed being out of town, of course," Janet said.
"It is always pleasant to leave London for a while, I
think."
There was a cool masterfulness in the tone of this that
arrested Elfrida's feeling of half-penitence, and armed
her instantly.
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