Page:Possession (1926).pdf/178

 "Of course. So you must. Nobody here would pay to hear an American musician. And you must take a foreign name. That's important. Some day it won't be. But it is now. We're still afraid to trust ourselves. People spend money for names as well as music. You must have a good foreign name, the fancier the better so long as it doesn't sound like a music hall. Have you any friends over there?"

"I have a cousin." Her manner was better now, a little more contained and far less shy, for the amazing friendliness of Mrs. Callendar had begun to accomplish the inevitable effect. This dowager was perhaps the first woman in all the city who had been friendly toward her, the first woman who had not been a little on her guard, a little uncertain. . . the way Bunce's wife was uncertain and hostile. And there was something in the manner of Mrs. Callendar which must have reminded Ellen of her mother. . . a certain recklessness, a quality that was quite beyond barriers of any sort.

"Is the cousin male or female?" asked Mrs. Callendar, "because in Paris it makes a difference."

"Female," replied Ellen.

"Indeed! Perhaps I know her?"

"Her name is Shane," said Ellen. "Lily Shane."

For a time Mrs. Callendar regarded the blue smoke of her cigarette in silence, thoughtfully. "Shane," she murmured. "Shane? I don't think I know any one named Shane? I know most of the Americans in Paris. Has she lived there long?"

"Many years."

"Shane? Shane?" Mrs. Callendar continued to murmur with an air of searching the recesses of her excessively active brain; and then, all at once, she grew alert. "Shane! Shane! Of course. Reddish hair. Tall. Beautiful. Madame Shane. I've never met her, but I've seen her somewhere. She's been pointed out to me . . . maybe at the races, maybe at the Opéra. Madame Shane . . . to be sure. A beauty! A widow, isn't she?"

There was in Ellen's reply no haste: indeed she waited for a