"Why has she returned?" she asked. "Where is Monsieur Callendar?"
Victorine shrugged her fat shoulders. "I don't know, Madame. None of us knows anything. A cable came at noon to-day with the news that she was arriving . . . to make things ready. I telephoned you. . . . I sent messages. The word came that you did not return for lunch and no one knew where you were." With an air of drama, she said again, "The new Madame Callendar came in an hour ago."
Sabine stood biting her crimson lips. If Ellen Tolliver had returned from Tunis, it was not likely that she would be going away soon, and it would be awkward to ask her permission to enter the house. Why had she returned? Why had Callendar not come with her? She turned to Victorine.
"Where is she now?"
"Resting," replied Victorine, "in the boudoir."
(That terrible room with the bearskin rugs and the mirrors sending back and forth innumerable reflections, as if the place were filled with a host of people . . . a host of personalities all of whom were in the end contained within the flesh of the on-looker. . . . Many persons in each of us, thought Sabine. It was comic to think of Ellen Tolliver, so distinguished, so self-possessed, so cold, in the midst of all that cheap demi-mondaine splendor.)
"Are my things ready?"
"I was not sure, Madame, how many things you wished to take away with you. I got ready the things I knew. There may be others."
Sabine made her decision. "I will come in and get them now. Say nothing to Madame Callendar. If she's resting, I'll hurry away without her knowing that I've come."
She slipped a ten franc note into the insinuating palm of Victorine who promptly said, "It's good to see you again, Madame," in a voice which carried another meaning—"We would much prefer you to the new Mrs. Callendar."
