Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/237



AY in and day out Lily's life followed its easy, happy course, Always there were diversions, always gaiety, always people. Yet there were times now—indeed they seemed to have begun upon her return from America following her mother's death—when a cloud of sadness descended upon her, times when she would withdraw suddenly to her own room as if some tiny thing, a word, a gesture, an intonation, had set fire to a train of secret memories. Frequently she kept her room for the rest of the day, seeing no one, lunching and dining alone on a gilt table placed before her chaise longue by the window.

These sudden fits of melancholy disturbed Ellen who remarked on them gravely to old Madame Gigon.

"She was never like that before. I can't see what it is that disturbs her."

Madame Gigon saw no cause for alarm. "It's true," she said. "She was never like that before. But it may be that she grows tired. You see she is growing older, my dear Mees Ellen. All of us, as we grow older, like moments of solitude and quiet. It gives one time to reflect on life. You don't understand that yet. You're too young. But some day you will understand. As you get older you begin to wonder what it's all about . . . (pourquoi le combat)."

"Perhaps," replied Ellen with a vigorous shrug. "I'm sure it can't be her mother. It might, of course, be Irene."

And they fell to discussing for the hundredth time the case of Irene, whom Madame Gigon had not seen since she was a little girlk. They talked of her strange behavior, Madame Gigon wagging her old head, staring before her with sightless eyes.

"It is tragic . . . a life like that," she would say. "A life wasted. You know she was a pretty little girl. . . . She could have married."