Ellen, persistent, bent over the table toward her cousin. The riding crop fell to the gravel terrace. “Promise me you won’t sell it, Lily.... Promise me you’ll keep it. It’s a chance to hit back.... Promise!”
And Lily, who after all was indifferent in matters of business, promised, perhaps because the violent revelations made by her cousin astounded her so completely that she was unable to think of any argument. Doubtless she had reasons of her own ... secret reasons which had to do with the worn clippings in the enameled box.
“I’ll keep it,” she replied. “They can wait until Hell freezes over. And besides you put the idea so that it amuses me. I’ll sell the other stuff and invest the money.”
Ellen interrupted her with a bitter laugh. “It’s funny, you know, that all this time they’ve been pouring money into your pocket. That’s the joke of it. In a way, it was all this booming and prosperity that helped me too. If you hadn’t been so rich, I suppose I’d never have made a success of it.”
Lily languidly finished the last of her chocolate. “I’d never thought of it in that way. It’s an amusing idea.”
Ellen was satisfied. Gathering up her letters she went into the house, changed her clothes, and in a little while, seated under the flaming Venice of Mr. Turner, she was working stormily at her music, filling the house with glorious sound until it overflowed and spilled its rhapsodies over the terrace into the garden where the first bright irises were abloom.
LXI
UPSTAIRS Lily made her way, after a toilette which occupied two hours, to the room of Madame Gigon. It was, amid the elegance of the house, a black-sheep of a room, its walls covered with books, its corners cluttered with broken fragments of Gothic saints and virgins, the sole legacy of the distant and obscure M. Gigon, curator at the Cluny Museum. In the center stood a table covered with dark red rep, heavily embroidered and cluttered with inkpots, pens and all the paraphernalia of writing. Bits of faded brocade ornamented the wall save for a space opposite the door where hung an immense engraving of the First Napoleon, dominating a smaller portrait of Napoleon the Little in all the glory of his mustaches and imperial. An engraving of the Eugènie by Winterhalter stood over the washstand, a convenience to which Madame Gigon clung even after Lily’s installation of the most elaborate American plumbing.
Madame Gigon huddled like a benevolent old witch among the bedclothes of her diminutive bed. At the foot, in a bright patch of sunlight, lay Criquette and Michou amiably close to each other and both quite stuffed with toasted rolls and hot chocolate.
Lily came in looking fresh and radiant in a severe suit and smart hat. They exchanged greetings.