Page:Possession (1926).pdf/274

 They were a handsome pair, Lily and the Baron, the one so blonde and voluptuous, the other so dark, so brusque, so like a bit of fine steel. There was about him a sense of something familiar, which tormented the dim recesses of Ellen's memory.

"Well! Well!" he said, throwing down the coats and bags. "Let's have some breakfast." And with the same proprietary air he moved across and rang for the maid and ordered chocolate and rolls for himself and Lily.

When they had gone at last into the drawing-room and Madame Gigon, groping her way down the long stairs, and followed by the two fat dogs, had come in, Ellen understood what it was she had recognized at once in the swarthy Monsieur Carrière. It was nothing that had to do with his appearance; it was far more subtle and complicated than that. It was his manner, the very intonation of his voice when he spoke either to Ellen or Lily herself. He approached them, for all his smooth politeness, as if they were, in the final analysis, creatures inferior to himself, creatures who should be delighted to grant his every whim. With Lily, so good-natured, so generous, he may have been right: with her cousin it was as Mrs. Callendar used to say, "autres choses." The girl bristled with subdued anger. As they sat there, the three of them, smoking before the bright fire, she knew they were destined to hate each other.

Yet it was this very quality, so hauntingly familiar, that reminded her of Richard Callendar. He had not asked her if she loved him; he had taken it simply for granted that she should do as he wished. The memory, in spite of everything, made her miserable. She heard his voice again, more gentle and soft than the voice of the Baron, and saw his hands, fascinating and persuasive.

He was somewhere in this same damp white city on his wedding journey with Sabine.

Presently the Baron observed with a brusque, important air that he must be off: Madame Gigon summoned Jean to the school