She had lived, if not a life beyond reproach, one that was at least discreet and marked by good taste, and so the other things, since the world is as it is, did not matter. Of those who had really known her secret only three remained ... Ellen and Hattie and Jean. César and Madame Gigon and Old Julia were dead. It did not, of course, occur to her to include The Everlasting, who had known all the while.
Jean too was happier now, for he had grown used to wandering about on crutches and had become accustomed to a new leg, made so admirably that he could still ride as much as he liked. It would have been impossible for him to have remained depressed; there was too much of Lily in him and, it must not be forgotten, he resembled Fergus greatly. The old friendship between him and Ellen waxed stronger than ever. It seemed to her at times that Fergus had returned or had never died at all. In the evenings while his mother sat talking quietly in the big soft drawing room with Monsieur de Cyon, Ellen joined him at the piano in playing with four hands the wildest songs out of the music halls. Rebecca in rare moments of good humor added to the gaiety with imitations of poor old Sarah Bernhardt or Mistinguette or Spinelly.
Rebecca had long since come to make herself at home in the big house. She was settled now in one of the rooms opening on the long gallery and she was perpetually with them, for it never occurred to Lily to offer objections to one more guest; but, having nothing to occupy her time, she grew irritable and restless. Her occupation had gone suddenly and there remained nothing to absorb her energy. Ellen remained stubborn and mysterious. She would not return to America where there was a fortune awaiting her.
“I have enough,” she said. “I need not work myself to death. I am rich now. I am through with struggling. Whenever I see fit I can return.”
But to Rebecca, it must have seemed that Ellen had slipped somehow out of her reach, beyond the control which she had once held over her. She would not even quarrel as they had once done so often and with such vigor. She would simply repeat, “No. When I am ready, I will tell you. I am going to rest for a time.”
It was her contentment that clearly had the power of disturbing Rebecca. She seemed at times almost happy. The old wilfulness and caprice were gone, and when she sat at the piano with Jean, there were times when it even seemed that she was enveloped by a hard, bright gaiety, touched, it is true, by hysteria and bitterness. She was unmanageable in a way she had never been.
“You are deceiving me,” Rebecca reproached her. “There is something that I don’t know. You are keeping something from me.” And she would grow tearful and descend to the rich depths of Oriental sentiment. “Me,” she would repeat, beating her thin breast, “who have given my life for you ... who have worked myself to the bone ... given all my time.... For no other reason than to make you a success. It is shameful.”
And Ellen, in her new wisdom, might have answered, “Because you have found the thing you were born to do. Because you were aimless till you fastened upon me.... Because you found happiness in taking possession of me and my life.”
But she said none of these things because it seemed to her that quarreling was useless. She only laughed and replied, “And you told the most wonderful lies about me.... You created Lilli Barr but Lilli Barr is having a rest now. I am being myself ... Ellen Tolliver ... for a little time.”
Still Rebecca, too wise to be put off with such answers, only looked at her with suspicion and remained sulky. She could not run off now to visit Uncle Otto and Aunt Lina in Vienna nor the aunt in Riga nor the cousins in Trieste. She could not even make a round of the watering places, for all those which were not closed or filled with wounded soldiers lay on the other side of the circus parade that had begun to draw near to the end. One could almost hear the distant toots of the steam calliope, manned and manipulated by politicians, that fetched up the rear.