Page:Possession (1926).pdf/243

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Fergus who, sprawling on the divan with his eyes closed, listened to her in a sensual abandonment. There were times when it must have seemed to her that Callender had returned and listened. The old likeness, so elusive, so indefinable, came to live again in the long evenings. She could not say what it was, save that they both possessed a wildness not to be hindered by ambition or restraint or even laws. They were both among those who were born free.

But as the month of October advanced, a depression appeared slowly to envelope her. To Fergus the change became apparent and to Clarence it was acute. She betrayed herself by no single thought or action; it was far less simple and direct. Outwardly she went through the old motions of living. Sometimes in the autumn evenings when the husband and the brother sat listening to her music, Clarence would turn his pale eyes toward Fergus with a look which said, "You see what I mean? What am I to do?" The grayness trapped them all, even the genial, careless boy.

In the hours when she was alone, she did things which might have betrayed her, had they been known. Instead of spending the long hours at her piano she walked for miles, sometimes along the river, sometimes in the park. And she developed a new interest in newspapers, an interest which centered itself upon the columns setting forth the doings in the world of the rich and fashionable. From these she learned that Thérèse Callendar and her son had returned from abroad, bringing with them Sabine and a trousseau which cost fabulous sums. She discovered that the wedding party was not to be in Sabine's narrow house (it was too small) but in the solid brownstone house of the Callendars. The wedding, said the columns, was to be not in the flamboyant new St. Jude's on the Avenue but in St. Bart's two blocks away, a small church of dark brown stone, rather shabby but really distinguished. Knowledge of this sort she had picked up in the course of her brief adventure into the world. She understood the difference between St. Jude's which was the richest church and St. Bart's which was