her head and passing her hand against her eyes, murmured, "I should not like Ellen to know."
At this he laughed and a new note, one of hard anger, entered his voice. "She knows already if she is not a fool."
At the intonation Lily withdrew and leaned against one of the white urns. "She doesn't. I'm sure of it. She has said nothing."
Again he laughed, scornfully. "She's no fool. She knows it would be more unpleasant for her than for you. She needs a home and money . . . just now. She'll not open her eyes so long as it might harm her plans."
Sitting there in the darkness, Ellen succumbed to a slow anger that rose to her head like a fever. She had believed that he spoke against her; now she was sure of it. She hated him vaguely, because he dared even to say such a thing to her cousin. He was so sure of himself, the amorous beast.
She was hurt too, as if some one had struck her, because what César had said was so near to the truth.
But Lily turned away from him. "I won't have you say such things," she said. "It is ridiculous and unjust."
He did not use words in defense of himself, perhaps because words were to him such weak and awkward weapons. Instead, he simply took Lily once more in his arms, and beneath his kisses, Ellen saw that all resistance, all anger melted from her. It was like a bit of wax touched suddenly by a flame. . . . An amazing sight which seemed to illumine sharply the whole of Lily's strange life.
After a moment, he placed his arm about her waist and they moved away down the steps into the shadow of the plane trees. Once they halted for a time while he kissed her again and then, resuming their way in the same state of enchantment, they disappeared through the filigree of black shadows into the white pavilion, silvered by the moon.
And in the room above the terrace, Ellen slipped from the chaise longue to the floor where she lay flung out, weeping passionately. The loneliness returned now more terribly than ever before.
