in the midst of her own worries to the nearness of the guilty pavilion, when she saw Augustine, the maid, coming toward her with a card. For some reason, she was overcome by a sudden feeling that this bit of paper which the red-faced Breton girl held in her hand was of immense importance. She found herself hurrying forward to meet her. She found herself reading the name and then, looking up, she saw in one of the tall windows that opened on the terrace, the figure of Sabine Cane . . . Sabine Callendar . . . standing in the brilliant sunlight, dressed all in gray, superbly, with a gray veil that fell over her shoulders . . . the same Sabine, poised, indifferent, striking. Nothing had changed save that she looked old, surprisingly so considering the perfection of her make-up.
The call must indeed be important, since Sabine had followed Augustine straight into the garden.
They sat in the long drawing-room where they might look out over the sun-drenched garden with its blue flame of irises lighting up the expanses of gray stone.
"What a lovely house!" remarked Sabine as she drew off her gloves. "I suppose it is your cousin's."
The speech was stiff, constrained by the vague shadow of hostility that had enveloped them, almost at once—an intangible thing, which it is probable both women felt but failed to understand, because each fancied herself too intelligent to be the victim of jealousy.
"Yes. It belongs to Madame Shane."
Sabine laughed. "It's the sort of house I would like. You see we live, when we're in Paris, in a sort of World's Fair exhibit in the Avenue du Bois."
It surprised Ellen to find that a single, small word such as "we" could cause her any feeling. She found too that the presence of Sabine had turned back the years; she was watching her now, as she might watch an enemy, as she had watched her in the days
