Page:Possession (1926).pdf/149

 Again Clarence remained thoughtful for a time. The newspaper had fallen from his hands and lay now, crumpled and forgotten by his side. Presently he blushed and murmured, "D'you think she might lend us the house some time. . . . We might be able to go there. . . . Not now, but when we have more money. I'd like to see Nice."

And the shadow on Ellen's face darkened. "We will . . . some day. When I'm famous and making money too."

"But I don't want to do it that way. I want to take you myself and pay for everything. . . . We might have Lily come and visit us."

Then to fill in the silence Ellen fell to playing again, softly now so that it did not halt the conversation; yet the sound in some way protected her. It was like the frail veil of lace which Lily wore. It shut her in suddenly. Clarence talked no more. He lay back in his stuffed chair, one hand strumming thoughtfully the wooden arm. A look of loneliness, more and more frequent of late, came into his brown eyes.

It was Ellen who turned to him presently, in the midst of the soft music and said, "I have good news for you. I am going to play to-morrow night in public. I am going to be paid for it. Sanson arranged it. I'm going to play at a party. It will mean money for us both."

But Clarence wasn't pleased. On the contrary he frowned and kept a disapproving silence.

"It's silly to feel that way about it," continued Ellen. "Why should I work as I do if not to make money in the end? Why shouldn't a wife help her husband? There's nothing wrong in it."

And then more music and more silence, while she destroyed slowly, bit by bit, his hopes of grandeur, of conquering a world for the sake of the woman he loved. He saw, perhaps, that despite anything he might do she would in the end surpass him.

"You see, we understood this when we married, Clarence. It's nothing new. . . . Is it? . . . Nothing new. Some day I shall be famous." She said this quite seriously, without the faintest