“I’ll go then,” continued Sabine. “I shan’t steal anything which doesn’t belong to me.”
At this Ellen laughed. “I’ve seen nothing in the house that you mightn’t steal ... gladly, for all of me.”
“The boudoir ...” murmured Sabine with understanding as she gathered up her parcels. She might have added, “Callendar and Thérèse think it a beautiful house. It suits them.” But because she knew the remark would have a feline sound, she kept silent. Besides it was probable that Ellen already knew it, perfectly. She bade Victorine summon Amedé and when the housekeeper was gone, Ellen moved a little nearer and said in a low voice, “You mustn’t go. You must stay for a little time.... Stay for a cup of tea.”
But Sabine declined, protesting. “No.... I’ve a score of errands. I really must go ... and honestly it seems to me an absurd situation.”
Ellen laid one hand on her shoulder and, looking at her closely, repeated, “You must stay.... I must talk to some one.... There is so much to discuss.”
Slowly Sabine put down her parcels, subdued once more by the old curiosity. (How could she resist the promise of such revelations?) Amedé appeared to carry away the larger bundles and she said to him, “Wait for me. I’m having tea with Mrs. Callendar.”
And the eyes of Amedé grew as bright, as filled with curiosity as those of Victorine. In the hallway the housekeeper said to him with a grimace, “These Americans! What a cold blooded lot! The first wife and the second having tea in the husband’s house!”
In the little sitting room where a year ago Thérèse had swept the papers from the table into her untidy reticule, Sabine and Ellen settled themselves to talk, Ellen looking worn and tired, as if a part of her tremendous spirit had been subdued or had slipped away from her, Sabine refreshed, worldly, elegant, mistress of herself ... the Sabine who had existed in the first days of the house on Murray Hill. The odd sense of comradeship persisted. It was the same spirit that had united them on the morning, long ago, when Sabine called at the Rue Raynouard, arriving as an enemy and departing as a friend. (She had been right in the instinct that led her into that call. Ellen belonged to him now, after all those years, as much of her as any mere process of law could deliver into his hands.)
It was Victorine who broke the precedent of fifteen years by bringing the tea with her own hands. Victorine, the housekeeper, the head of the entire ménage in the Avenue du Bois, bent her dignity, stepped down from her pedestal to carry a tea tray, because she feared that some morsel of fascinating interest might escape her ears. How could she resist this spectacle? This occasion? This friendly encounter (“Figure-toi,” she would say in the servants’ hall) between the two wives of her master. These Americans....
But she strained her ears and summoned in vain a youthful uncertain memory of English, for neither of the wives said anything of importance while she was in the room. They discussed the lateness of the spring, and even the political conditions, as if there were nothing at all extraordinary in the situation. (The cabinet, said the new Mrs. Callendar, in which M. de Cyon had served, was gone to the wall and all his gentle intrigues come to nothing.)