"Have you chosen a gown? We'll send for the motor and choose one this morning. That's important, you know . . . especially in England where they recognize good clothes but never wear them."
"I can't go this morning. . . . I'm going to Philippe."
"To-morrow then," said Lily. "I shall go over to London for the concert and bring Jean back with me. . . . Perhaps César can go too."
"Not him!" Ellen interrupted sullenly. "He'd spoil everything."
For a moment the two cousins regarded each other in silence. In Ellen's face there was a look of bitterness that appeared more and more frequently of late, a sort of devil-may-care expression that puzzled Lily and disturbed her. They had never recognized the breach before . . . not, at least, openly.
"Why shan't César come?" she put forward gently.
"He hates me! I know that!"
Lily endeavored to pour oil on the waters. "It's not true. You're rude to each other . . . both of you. Why is it? There's no reason. He doesn't really dislike you?"
For a time, Ellen came very close to being unpleasant; she was tempted to reveal all she had seen and heard from the window above the moonlit garden. The memory of César's words rang in her ears, a taunt in which there was too much of truth. But she could not say that she hated César because he never allowed her any peace of mind. She could not say that she never saw him without thinking of Callendar.
"It's nothing . . . nonsense, I daresay, on both sides." The power of Lily's eager friendliness overwhelmed her. "I'm sorry," she added, "that I'm disagreeable sometimes. . . . I've been worried lately. I know the quarrel is my fault too." She tore open one of her letters and then, looking very pale, she added, "Bring him, if he would like to come. . . . It won't matter."
And Lily never knew what it was that softened her so abruptly. She did not know, of course, that Ellen was thinking of Callendar,
