the Rue de Passy, encountering on his way now Sabine, now old Thérèse, now de Cyon, now a doctor or two, all of whom regarded him with the air of looking upon a specter. It was impossible to believe that so old a man could still be alive. He passed them all without so much as a glance, absorbed always in his search for the youth which had escaped him forever. In him too there were elements of the eternal, which nothing could alter or change in any way. To Gramp, Sycamore Street and the Rue Raynouard were in the end the same.
And then one morning a taxicab appeared at the door and discharged into the midst of the confusion a triumphant Rebecca Schönberg, bustling and with a new light in her ferrety eyes, her mind full of schemes for fresh triumphs and new concert tours; for the news of the débâcle had come to her through the gentle and forgotten Schneidermann in Vienna where she had gone to visit Uncle Otto and Aunt Lina. Already, before even she had seen Ellen, she had started under way news of the return of Lilli Barr to the concert stage. (She knew well enough that Ellen would never return to Callendar. She knew that in the end he had defeated himself. He had hung himself with his own rope; but he had done it so much sooner than she expected.)
She bribed Augustine to let her know when Callendar came to the house, and when he arrived she took care that he did not escape without seeing her. She met him at the foot of the stairs. She did not flaunt her triumph; she was far too subtle for that. The same blood flowed in her veins and she understood how best to mock him.
She said, "Ah! It's you. I hadn't expected to see you here." And holding out her hand with the air of a mourner, she murmured with sad looks and a bogus sincerity, "I'm so sorry it turned out badly. I had hoped you would be successful this time. I wanted you to know that I am full of sympathy. . . . But, of course, Ellen could not have done otherwise."
And so she left him nothing to say. She sent him away, bedraggled and a little ridiculous, in defeat; for by the light in
