Page:Possession (1926).pdf/272

 Madame Gigon taught your grandmother in school when she was a young girl. . . ."

She wanted by some means to escape from the subject of the Town. She could not, of course, tell the boy why he could never visit the Town; she could not tell him there were scores of old women who had been waiting for years just to know for certain that he existed at all. She could tell him about the smoke and filth, but she could not explain to him the nasty character of those women.

"I'm going to England to school in the autumn," the boy said. "Maman has arranged everything. . . . I'll like that better than going to school here. . . . Perhaps grandmère might come to visit us some time."

"She might . . ." replied Ellen, "but she's very ill. . . . My mother is taking care of her now. You see, my mother lives in the Town. She's your mother's cousin . . . her real first cousin. That's how it comes that I'm your cousin."

"And your mother? What is she like?" asked the boy.

For an instant Ellen observed him thoughtfully. "She's not a bit like your mother . . . and yet she's like her too in some ways."

She did not finish the description, for at that moment, through the long vista of the rooms, she saw moving toward her Lily and a man who carried a handbag and across his arm a steamer rug. As they came in, Jean sprang from his chair and ran toward them, clasping his mother about the waist and kissing her as she leaned toward him.

"Maman has come back! Maman has come back!" he cried over and over again, and then, "I have a new cousin! I have a new cousin!"

The man laughed and Lily, smiling, bade the boy be quiet, turning at the same time to Ellen, whom she embraced, to say, "So you've come at last! I hope you're going to stay a long time."

It was the same Lily, a shade older, a shade less slender, but