Page:Possession (1926).pdf/260

 interest. It was all far grander than she had ever imagined, more magnificent than she had hoped. In such a house she might stay quietly, interfering with no one. It was possible to remain hidden in its depths for weeks at a time.

"Shall I stay?" asked her companion.

"I can manage. . . . It's my affair. There's no use troubling you any further. It was good of you to have bothered."

"But what about speaking French?"

"Madame Gigon speaks English. She once had a school for English and American girls. . . . My great-aunt went to it."

Up the long stairs, remotely, the maid was returning now.

"Bien," she said. "Madame Gigon will see you."

"Au revoir," murmured the stranger. "If you want me, I shall be at the Ritz until the end of the month. . . . Miss Rebecca Schönberg. . . . You have my card. . . ."

And with that she vanished through the rain into the waiting cab.

At the foot of the long stairs Ellen found herself suddenly in the great drawing-room. Beyond, through the tall window draped in blue brocade, she had a vista of dripping trees and a wet garden dominated by a white pavilion that resembled a pastry. The room was long and rectangular, for all the world like the drawing room at Shane's Castle, save that it was not, even on this wet winter day, a gloomy room. There was in it far too much color. Even the satinwood paneling appeared warm and soft. At the far end before a neat fire of cannel coal she discerned among the shadows the figures of a tiny old woman and a small boy, sturdy, handsome and red haired. He sat at the feet of the crone, reading aloud to her in English and nearby lay two fat and elderly dogs, an Aberdeen and a West Highland. It was not until she had come quite close to them that they realized she had entered the room. The boy stood up and the old woman turned toward her with a curious dazed look in her eyes.

It was the old woman who spoke first. She peered, apparently