trees in the little park. Beside Sabine's tiny motor, Amedé waited, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Belowstairs Victorine regaled the servants' hall with an embroidered description of what she had witnessed, but when pressed for details became vague and unsatisfactory.
Sabine stirred and murmured: "Besides, I don't fancy you are entirely . . . How shall I say it? I don't wish to be offensive . . . I don't fancy perhaps that you are completely in love with him. I mean that you have not lost your head. If you gave him up, it would not be the end of everything. . . ."
Ellen sat up very straight, her mouth almost hard. "No," she said. "It would not be the end of everything!" And then relaxing a bit, she continued, "No. But I am in love with him. I do love him. I can't describe it. . . . It's a kind of hypnotism."
It was impossible to be angry with Sabine. She was so calm, so obviously honest; it was impossible not to respect that incredible passion for the truth.
"I know what it is . . . I know," murmured Sabine thoughtfully.
"I think at times that I could give him up," and Ellen snapped her fingers, "like that . . . quickly, without a qualm, without so much as a backward look, and then something reaches out and takes possession of me, and in the next moment I know it is impossible. Once you are entangled, it is not easy to be free." She threw her cigarette half-smoked into the mouth of the fireplace, a monstrous, ornate affair out of all proportion to the room. "My God!" she added with a quick passion. "What is it that he does to us? . . . To women like you and me, who are intelligent women, independent . . . not fools? What is it he does to most women? I have seen them in the hotel at Tunis looking at him. I have seen that look come into his eyes. . . ."
Sabine put down her teacup, leaned forward and said, "It is an animal thing . . . what he does to us. If we are to be honest, it is that. You see, women like you and me never think of that. . . . We take it for granted there is no such thing. . . .
