Page:Possession (1926).pdf/492

 In the drawing-room at the Rue Raynouard, Ellen sat with her mother and Lily having tea when Thérèse was announced. To them she said, "If you don't mind, I'd best see her alone. . . . I don't know what it means. She has come perhaps to persuade me to return. She won't give up easily."

So Lily and Hattie left and a moment later at the foot of the stairs the figure of old Thérèse appeared, hot and untidy, peering with her eyes squinted, in search of her daughter-in-law. For a time Ellen waited in the cool shadows, watching. It was incredible (she thought) how Thérèse had changed. She was a figure of fun as she stood there, clutching her precious reticule, disheveled and bizarre, peering into the dim room. This was not the eccentric, worldly Thérèse of the house on Murray Hill. It was an old harridan, obsessed by a single idea—her fortune and what would become of it.

"Mrs. Callendar," she said softly, moving forward.

"Ah, there you are . . . My dear! My darling!" She waddled toward her daughter-in-law and embraced her.

(She has taken to oiling her hair, thought Ellen. She will be running a fruit stand soon.)

"I have heard the news. . . . I have heard the news. . . . You are to have a leetle baby."

She sat down, her fat old face all soft and beaming now, her diamonds glittering dimly as they had always glittered.

"Did Richard tell you?" asked Ellen.

"I only landed yesterday. . . . I motored all the way from Le Havre. I did not know the news then. I only knew that you had run away from him. What is it? What has happened?"

Ellen, watching her, knew that in the recesses of her Oriental mind the old woman thought her a fool for running away. Thérèse believed that any woman could make a good wife. It was a woman's duty to put up with anything, as Sabine had done until she was thrust aside as barren and useless. As Sabine