Madame Blaise had begun to walk up and down the room with the languid air of a mannequin. The big hat flopped as she moved. Turning her head coyly, she said, “I have not changed. You see, I am almost the same.”
And then she fell to talking rapidly to herself, holding unearthly conversations with men and women who stood in the dark corners of the room among the innumerable pictures and bits of decaying bric-a-brac. Crossing the room she passed near Lily’s chair where, halting for a second, she bent down until her painted cheek touched Lily’s soft hair. “You see,” she cried, pointing toward the dusty closet, “that one over there.... He would give his life to have me.” She laughed a crazy laugh. “But no ... not I. Never yield too easily and yield only for love. Live only for love.” And she moved off again on her mad promenade, gibbering, bowing and smiling into the dusty corners.
In the midst of a tête-á-tête which the old woman held with an invisible beau whom she addressed as “Your Highness,” Lily sprang up and ran toward the door. Opening it, she rushed through the upper hall down the stairway into the dark tunnel below. As the outer door slammed behind her, it shut in the sound of Madame Blaise’ cracked singing, punctuated by peals of crazy laughter.
Lily did not stop running until she passed the gate of the little enclosure and stood, breathless and fainting with terror, beneath the lights of the Rue de l’Assomption.
LXVI
THEY passed the summer at Germigny-l’Evec in the lodge on the terrace above the winding Marne. The little house at Houlgate kept its shutters up all through the hot months. It is true that the health of Madame Gigon was none too good. It is true too that she might have benefited by the sea air. Although Lily mentioned the migration once or twice as the summer advanced she did not insist upon it. Madame Gigon, it appeared, preferred the house where she had always passed her summers, and Lily was content to remain there as the weeks passed through June and into a hot and breathless July. It seemed that, for the first time, she was tired. Indolent by nature, she had reserves of energy which could be roused when the occasion arose. But it appeared that this occasion was not one of sufficient importance; so she remained quietly, reading, walking by the Marne; sometimes in the early morning when the weather was not too hot, she even rode one of the Baron’s horses along the paths of the wood on the opposite side of the river near Trilport.
For diversion the pair were visited by Jean who came romping down from St. Cyr for a brief holiday now and then, always looking handsome and behaving with the ferocity appropriate to a budding cavalryman. Ellen came too, but her visits tired her cousin, especially during the hot months. While she was there Lily pretended that she did not ride because Ellen made riding impossible for her. Ellen insisted upon riding at top speed. She searched for stone walls to jump. She even swam her horse through the Marne on one hot morning in July. Unlike Lily she made no effort to preserve her complexion. She became as tanned as an Indian and as hard as an athlete. Jean admired her enormously, and together they careered wildly across country; for Ellen sat her saddle lightly and as well as any man. Indeed she was as good as a boy for a companion. She even enjoyed the risqué barracks jokes which Jean told her. She listened to the ballads he sang, the bawdy ballads of the cavalry, old songs filled with the traditions of Napoleon’s army ... the same ballads which Lily sang to herself as she dressed for the last ball ever given at Cypress Hill.
Ellen could swear too, in English or in bad French. They became great friends. Lily saw them off in the mornings from her window, looking after them with an expression of mingled envy and regret in her dusky blue eyes. She must have envied the pair their youth. She was jealous of Ellen as she was always jealous of any one for whom Jean showed affection.
But an end came to the early morning excursions when Ellen in August sailed for New York to spend a month with her mother and father. They lived in a little house on Long Island; for Hattie Tolliver, since her children had become successful, no longer kept a rooming house in Manhattan.
“Pa is content now,” Ellen said. “He’s got a horse and a garden and chickens. That’s what he always wanted. Ma is too. But it’s different with her. She ought to have another complete family of children. She’s never gotten over being a mother. She wants us to stay with her always. She can’t bear having us grown up.”