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 room for his lesson, and the two cousins were left alone. Before the others they had carried on a sort of made-up conversation, suitable for the ears of strangers, and neither had spoken honestly nor fully. As Madame Gigon, guided by Jean and followed by the waddling dogs, disappeared round the corner of the stairs, Lily took off her hat and observed, "Well, now I suppose we can have a long . . . long talk. Come up to my room where we'll be alone."

The family, again after so long a time, asserted itself.

It was a large room, closely resembling the one in which Madame Gigon had placed Ellen, save that it was even more luxurious and smelled faintly of scents and powders. There was a canopied bed and on the wall hung reproductions of four drawings by Watteau. It was not until Lily had removed her corsets and, clad in a peignoir of lace, had flung herself down on the bed that the sense of strain disappeared utterly.

"Sit there on the chaise longue," she said to Ellen, "and let's have a good talk. There's so much to say."

Ellen, stiff and severe in her mourning, sat down by the side of her glowing cousin and Lily, lying back among the pillows, appeared by contrast more lovely, more opulent than she had seemed an hour earlier. To her cousin, so changed since they had last met, so much more indifferent to such matters, there was an air of immorality and sensuousness in the room. Beside Lily she felt as lean, as spirited as a young greyhound.

"You know about Jean," Lily observed casually. "You understand then why I did not insist on your coming to live with me. I was foolish perhaps . . . but when the moment came there was always something which wouldn't let me betray the secret. . . ." She lighted a cigarette and lay back once more among the pillows. "I suppose it was a secret," she added, complacently.

"People talked, but no one knew anything."

"No one knows anything here. . . . No one save Madame Gigon. They know less here because they haven't so much time