Page:Possession (1926).pdf/462

 in the instinct that led her, years before, to call at the house in Rue Raynouard. There had been nothing to discover, and yet everything. What was true now of Callendar and Ellen Tolliver was true then, as they sat in the long beautiful drawing-room, just as true as it had been in the days when the girl had come to the house on Murray Hill. It was only that they themselves had changed and here (she thought almost with satisfaction) might lie the seeds of one more disaster. For Lilli Barr could not possibly be the same as the awkward, obscure Ellen Tolliver, and Callendar had hardened slowly in all the qualities which made him impossible. Ellen Tolliver would not submit to the unhappiness she herself had known; Ellen Tolliver would not wait patiently to achieve her own desire. She was capable of stormy scenes; she had clearly a genius for success, for having her own way. He had, perhaps, in all his watching never discovered this. And yet, as she thought it over and over on the drive to the Rue Tilsit, it occurred to her that it might be just this and nothing more that was the very core of that inexplicable, persistent attraction between them.

Lilli Barr. . . Lilli Barr. . . Lilli Barr. . . She kept repeating the name to herself. She still felt no resentment. If she herself could not have Callendar, there was no reason why Lilli Barr should not have him. There was, she knew, nothing more to be done.

The voice of Amedé, the driver, roused her as he opened the door. She stepped out, bade him wait for orders, and turning, she saw little Thérèse standing in the window with the governess. It reminded her that she must see Thérèse's friend Ella Nattatorini about the lease for the house at Houlgate. . . . The sea would do little Thérèse good. And there were servants to be engaged and the packing to be done. ..

The ocean of small things which made it possible to endure unhappiness rose and swept over her.