Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/354



HE pavilion in the garden Lily gave to M. de Cyon for a study. Here it was her habit to meet him daily on his return from the Ministry when his motor, a gift from her, left him at the gate on the Rue de Passy.

One bright October day of the same year, she went as usual to the pavilion to amuse herself until he arrived by reading the newspapers which were placed upon his table. They lay in a neat pile. . . Le Journal de Genève, Il Seccolo of Milan, La Tribuna of Roma, the London Post, the London Times, Le Figaro, L'Echo de Paris, Le Petit Parisien, Le Matin, L'Oeuvre.

She skimmed through them, reading snatches of news, of the opera, and the theater, of society, of politics, of races, the personals in the London Times. . . this or that, whatever caught her fancy.

In the drawing-room Ellen and Jean, with his crutches by his side, sat at the piano playing with four hands snatches of music from the operettas of the moment, from Phi-Phi and La Reine Joyeuse. They sang and laughed as they played. The sound of their gaiety drifted out across the garden.

Lily read the journals until she grew bored. Something had delayed M. de Cyon. Already he was late by half an hour. She came at last, languidly, to the bottom of the pile, to L'Oeuvre which lay buried beneath the more pompous and expensive papers. This she never read because it was a socialist daily and therefore dull. Doubtless she would have passed it by again for the hundredth time but a name, buried in one corner in the smallest of print, caught her attention. It must have struck her suddenly with all the force of a blow in the face, for she closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. The paper slipped to the floor forgotten.