The sounds in the distant street began to die away and the echo of the boat whistles on the Seine grew fainter and fainter. On the terrace Ellen and the doctor were joined by a second nurse, still in her cape, who had come in by the garden side.
And at half-past ten Callendar appeared at the foot of the long stairs, looking worn and old, but cool despite all the heat. At his entrance Hattie ignored him, Thérèse nodded, and the others, save de Cyon who did not notice him at all, bowed without any trace of warmth. He was an enemy; it was clear that they looked upon him thus, even old Thérèse whose only interest lay now in the child. He seated himself and fell to talking with Lily, who could not for long be disagreeable to any man, and presently Ellen appeared in one of the windows and said, “Rebecca, you and Jean play the piano ... I can’t bear to look at you all sitting like statues.” And then she beckoned to Callendar who rose and went over to her.
As he left the room, Rebecca watched him with a queer expression of apprehension in her eyes. She did not trust him. He might turn the circumstances to his own advantage. He might cast a spell over Ellen at the moment when she was least able to resist. With Jean she went reluctantly to the piano where they fell to playing with four hands and with a mathematical precision they had long since perfected a variety of music hall songs. And as she played she stole a glance now and then over her shoulders at the tall windows past which Ellen and Callendar moved with a clock-like regularity. But she was not the only one who watched. There was Hattie too and even old Thérèse. Each of them desired from Ellen a different thing, and each of them was resolved to have her own will in the matter.
Outside the windows the husband and the wife with the black dog at their heels walked up and down while Ellen, looking tall and pale and desperate, talked earnestly.
“The child,” she said firmly, “is to be mine. I will fight until the end for that. I have made up my mind. I will not have him go to you.... You are not fit.”
He said nothing in reply. It was not possible to argue at such a time. She was fighting now, as he had always done, unscrupulously, to achieve what she desired. They turned at the end of the terrace and moved back once more past the windows where Rebecca and Hattie and Thérèse kept peering out. It was (thought Ellen in a peaceful moment) like bearing one’s child in public ... as the French Queens had done, with a whole crowd looking on.... (But she must bring her mind back to the business at hand.)
“And if anything happens to me,” she said to Callendar, “if I should die and the child live ... he is to be brought up by my mother. I have talked to my lawyers. It is possible to arrange all that. There is plenty of evidence against you ... even a French court—” She gasped for breath and turned again. “Even a French court would uphold me in that. Besides Rebecca has promised me that she will carry on the fight. I tell you all this, because I want you to know that I am finished forever.” She was walking rapidly now and made a sudden passionate gesture in the direction of the windows. “Rebecca need not look at us so anxiously. There is no question about it.... And I will not leave a child of mine in such an atmosphere as you and your mother are able to provide.” She drew another quick, sharp breath and added, “I gave you every chance ... and you were a rotter always. I loved you and I would love you still if I thought there was any chance of redemption ... but there is none.”
And then, before turning toward the pavilion, she said, “You did not win in the end, you see.... It was I who won.... I and Sabine too.... And I will go on fighting, even if I should die. It has all been arranged. And now,” she said, dismissing him, “will you tell my mother to come with me to the pavilion? I want none of the others ... only her.”
So it was Callendar who summoned Hattie at the moment Ellen needed her most. In the end she belonged to Hattie alone of all those people who sat waiting ... Hattie, whose whole life had been concerned with love and birth and death.
When they had gone away, Callendar sat on the stone balustrade smoking in silence, conquered now beyond all doubt. He had been dismissed once and for all. Ellen would return now into the world out of which she had come to him ... a world in which she belonged to Rebecca and her public. Perhaps as he sat there in the hot, still air, waiting for his child to be born, he knew the last of his adventures to which there was any savor had come to an end.