Page:Possession (1926).pdf/36

 mon sense. In these skirmishes, wild hope and inspiration went down in defeat. There were too many obstacles. . . poverty, prejudice, even her own sense of provinciality. Yet underneath a little voice kept saying, "You'll do it . . . you'll do it. . . . Nothing can stop you. You'll be able to get what you want if you want it hard enough."

And by the time she turned into the block where the Tolliver family lived, clinging like grim death to a respectability which demanded a brave face turned toward the world, her mind began once more to work in its secret way, planning how it would be possible.

Miss Ogilvie's timid, frightened offer of help she had quite forgotten. Miss Ogilvie was so old, so gentle, so ineffectual. . . like her own caged canaries. Ellen's mind had begun already to turn toward her cousin Lily. The glamorous Lily must know some way out. 

T was Lily who still dominated her thoughts when she descended at last to find her mother setting the table for the family supper. This was an operation into which Mrs. Tolliver threw all the great energy and force of her character. It was impossible for her to do things easily; the placing of each fork involved as much precision, as much thoroughness and intensity as the building of a bridge or a skyscraper. It was the gesture of an ardent housekeeper burning incense before the Gods of Domesticity, the abandoned devotion of an artist striving for perfection.

For an instant Ellen stood in the doorway watching her mother as if somewhere in the recesses of her clever brain she considered this parent as she might consider a stranger, marking the woman's strong face, her vigorous black hair, the rosiness of her healthy