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L'exemplaire filmd fut reproduit grfice A la g6n4rosit6 de: IVIacOdrum Library Carleton University Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetd de l'exemplaire filmd, et - tlio fact that ^liss Kiinpscy ca? icd her own livinp;^ iiioru than one of its ornaments liad done tho sanio tiling — and Miss Kimpsey's rehilions were all "in grain " and ()])vionsly respcctahle. It was simply that none of the Jvimi)seyK, ])n)si)('rous or poor, had ever hcen in society in Si)ai-ta, for reasons which Sj'arta itself would prohahly he unahle to delhic ; and this one was not likely to he thrust among the elect hecausc she taught school and enjoyed life n[)on a scale of ethics. Mrs. J Jell's drawing-room was a slight distrac- tion to Miss Kimpsey's nervous thoughts. The little school teacher had never heen in it hefore, and it impressed her. " It's just what you would expect her parlour to he,'' she said to herself, look- ing furtively round. She could not help her sense of impropriety ; she had always l)ecn taught that it was very bad manners to observe anything in another person's house, but she could not help looking either. She longed to get up and read tho names of the books behind the glass doors of the tall bookcase at the other end of the room, for the sake of the little quiver of respectful admiration she knew they would give her ; but she did not dare t j do that. Iler eyes went from the bookcase to the photogravure of Dore's '' Entry into Jeru- salem," under which three Japanese dolls were arranged with charming effect. '' The Reading Magdalen" caught them next, a coloured photo- graph ; and then a ^lagdalen of more obscure origin, in much blackened oils and a very deep frame ; then still another Magdalen, more modern, in monochrome. In fact, the room was full of Magdalens, and on an easel in the corner stood a Mater Dolorosa lifting up her streaming eyes. Granting the capacity to take them seriously, they might have depressed some people, but they elevated Miss Kimpsey. A DAUGllTKll OF TO-DAY. She was cqujilly ckvatud l^y the imitation uillow pattern plates over tlie door, and the painted yellow dalTodils on the panels, and the oranf^c- coloured Ihrnc panp;. The room was so dark that slie could not see how old the Juriic was : she did not know ( itiicr that it was always there, thnt unexception- al)le I'arisian periodical, with J)ante in the original and red leather, Aauhiuji A'o/r.s and the Slmhcuth. Coiliiri/, all helping to furnish ^[rs. Leslie Ikdl's drawing-room in a manner in accordance with her tastes ; but if she had, Miss Kimpsey would have been equally impressed. It took intellect even to select these things. The other books, ]\Iiss Kimpsey noticed, by the numbers labelled on their backs, were mostly from the circulating library — ** David Grieve," " Cometh up as a Flower," " The Earthly Paradise," lluskin's " Stones of Venice," ^larie Corelli's " Eomance of Two Worlds." The mantelpiece was arranged in geometrical disorder, but it had a gilt clock under a glass shade jn-ecisely in the middle. AVhen the gilt clock indicated, in a mincing way, that ^liss Kimpsey had been kept waiting fifteen minutes, Mrs. Bell came in. She had fastened her last button and assumed the ex- pression appropriate to Miss Kimpsey at the foot of the stair. She was a tall thin woman, with no colour and rather narrow brown eyes much wrinkled round about, and a forehead that loomed at you, and greyish hair twisted high into a knot behind, a knot from which a wispy end almost invariably escaped. When she smiled her mouth curved downwards, showing a number of large A DAl'dirrKIl OF TO-PAV. 5 ) had evt'ii wliitc teeth, aiK^ ^adc (U^ep lines, which Rii^j:;cste(l vjirious thin^^.^, icoordiii;; to th(! uuturo of the smih', on eitlier Hich) of her fjico. As a riiUi one niif^'ht take tlieiu to mean a ratliei- dopreeatini,' acceptance of life as it stands — they seenu-d in- tended for tliat ; and then Mi's. JJcll wonUl ex[)i"ess an enthusiasm and contradict them. As she came throu^'h the door under the " I'hitry into Jeru- sahan," saying' that she really must apoloe;i/c, she \vas sure it was un[)ardonal)le keeping >[iss J\impsey waitin;^ like this, the lines exi)ressed an intention of hein^' as a;:;recable as possible with- out committing herself to return ^liss Kimpsey's visit. *'Why no, Mrs. Bell," ^Fiss Kimpscy said earnestly, with a protesting bull' and grey smile, " I didn't mind waiting a particle, honestly I didn't. Besides, I presume it's early for a call, but I thought I'd drop in on my way from school." ^liss Kimpscy was determined that ^Frs. IjlH should have every excuse that charity could invent for her. She sat down again, and agreed with Mrs. Bell that they were having lovely weather, especially when they remembered what a disagree- able fall it had been last year; certainly this October had been just about perfect. The ladies used these superlatives in the tone of mild defiance that almost any statement of fact has upon femi- nine lips in America. It did not seem to matter that their observations were entirely in union. "I thought I'd run in," said IMiss Kimpsey, screwing herself up by the arm of her chal.'. "Yes?" *'And speak to you about a thing I've been thinking a good deal of, Mrs. Bell, this last day or two. It's about Elfrida." Mrs. Bell's expression became judicial. If this was a complaint— and she was not accustomed to A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. complaints of Elfrida— she would be careful how she took it. *' I hope " she began. " Oh, you needn't worry, Mrs. Bell. It's nothing' about her conduct, and it's nothing about her school wck." "Well, that's a relief," said Mrs. Bell, as if she had expected it would be. " But I know she's bad at figures. The child can't help that, though — she gets it from me. I think I ought to ask you to be lenient with her on that account." '*I have nothing to do with the mathematical branches, Mrs. Bell. I teach only English to the senior classes. But I haven't heard Mr. Jackson comi)lain of Elfrida at all." Feeling that she could no longer keep her errand at arm's length, ]\[iss Kimpsey desperately closed with it. " I've come — I hope you won't mind, Mrs. Bell Elfrida has been quoting Rousseau in her composi- tions, and I thought you'd like to know." ** In the original ? " asked Mrs. Bell vvith interest. ''I didn't think her French was advanced enough for that." " No, from a translation," Miss Kimpsey replied. *' Her sentence ran, * As the gifted Jean Jacques Rousseau told the world in his "Confessions" ' I forget the rest. That was the part that struck me most. She had evidently been reading the works of Piousseau." " Very likely ; Elfrida has her own subscription at the library," Mrs. Bell said speculatively. "It shows a taste in reading beyond her years, doesn't it, Miss Kimpsey? The child is only fil'teen." "Well, Fve never read Rousseau," the little teacher stated definitely. " Isn't he atheistical, Mrs. Bell, and improper every way?" Mrs. Bell raised her eyebrows and pushed A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. Cfiil 1 low I 5 notliin^' :>oiit Ii oi- ls if fiho lie's bad hougli — ask jou ^matical 1 to the Jack son lat she length, "I've ell )mi)osi- itercst. 3noiigh ei)liet]. acques ', » struck S tlie il^tfon ;ivej\-. rears, only little tical, ished out Lcr lips at the severity of tliis ignorant condemnation. ''He was a genius, Miss Kimpsey; rather, I should say he is, for genius cannot die. He is much thought of in France. People there make a little shrine of the house he occupied with Madame Warens, vou know." "Oh!" returned Miss Kimpsey. ''French people." "Yes. The French are peculiarly happy in the way they sanctify genius," said Mrs. Bell, vaguely, with a feeling that she was wasting a really valuable idea. "Well, you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Bell. I'd always heard you entertained about as liberal views as there were going on any subject, but I didn't expect they embraced Rousseau." Miss Kimpsey spoke quite meeklJ^ " I know we live in an age of progress, but I guess I'm not as progressive as some." " Many will stay behind," interrupted Mrs. Bell, impartially, "but many more will advance." " And I thought maybe Elfrida had been reading that author without your knowledge or approval, and that perhaps you'd like to know." "I neither approve nor disapprove," said Mrs. Bell, posing her elbow on the table, her chin upon her hand, and her judgment, as it were, upon her chin. " I think her mind ought to develop along the lines that nature intended ; I think nature is wiser than I am," — there was an effect of condescending explanation here, — " and I don't feel justified in interfering. I may be wrong " " Oh no ! " said Miss Kimpsey. "But Elfrida's reading has always been very general. She has a remarkable mind, if you will f^xcuse my saying so ; it devours everything. I can't tell you when she learned to read. Miss 8 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. Kimpsey ; it seomecl to come to her. She has often reminded me of ^Yhat you sec in the biographies of distinguished people about their youth— there arc really a great many points of similarity sometimes. I shouldn't be surprised if Elfrida did anything. I ^vish / had had her opportunities." ** She's growing very good-looking," remarked Miss Kimpsey. ''It's an interesting face," Mrs. Bell returned. ''Here is her last i)hotograph. It's full of soul, I think. She posed herself," IMrs. Bell added unconsciously. It was a cabinet photograph of a girl whose eyes looked definitely out of it, dark, large, well-shaded, full of desire to be beautiful at once expressed and fulfilled. The nose was a trifle heavily blocked, but the mouth had sensitiveness and charm. There was a heaviness in the chin too, but the free springing curve of the neck contradicted that ; and the symmetry of the face defied analysis. It was turned a little to one side, wistfully ; the pose and the expression suited each other perfectly. ''Fall of soul ! " responded Miss Kimjosey. " She takes awfully well, doesn't she ? It reminds me — it reminds me of pictures I've seen of Bachel, the actress. Beally it does." "I'm afraid Elfrida has no talent that way." Mrs. Bell's accent was quite one of regret. " She seems completely wrapped up in her painting just now," said Miss Kirrpsey, with her eyes still on the photograph. "Yes. I often wonder what her career will be, and sometimes it comes home to me that it must be art. The child can't help it — she gets it straight from me. But there were no art classes in my day." Mrs. Bell's tone implied a large measure of what the w'orld had lost in consequence. " Mr. Bell doesn't agree with me about Elfrida's being I A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 1 as often Lpliies of here arc iietiines. Liythiiig. ^marked 2 turned, of soul, 1 added ose eyes shaded, sed and blocked, charm, but the d that ; sis. It he i^ose " She s me — el, the way »> in her th her ill be, must raight n my la sure ''Mr. being predestined for art," she went on, smiling; ''his ■Nvliolo idea is that she'll marry, like other people." "Well, if she goes on improving in looks at the rate she has, you'll fmd it difficult to prevent, I should think, Mrs. Bell." Miss Kimpsey began to wonder at her own temerity in staying so long. " Should you be opposed to it? " " Oh, I shouldn't be opposed to it exactly. I won't say I don't expect it. I think she might do better, myself; but I dare say matrimony will swallow her up, as it does everybody — almost everybody — else." A finer ear than Miss Kimpsey's might have heard in this that to. overcome Mrs. Bell's objections matrimony must take a very attractive form indeed, and that she had no doubt it would. Elfrida's instructress did not hear it : she might have been less overcome with the quality of these latter-day sentiments if she had. Little Miss Kimpsey, whom matrimony had not swallowed up, had risen to go. "Oh, I'm sure the most gifted couldn't do better ! " she said hardily in departing, with a blush that turned her from buff and grey to brick colour. Mrs. Bell picked up the llevne after she had gone, and read three lines of a paper on the climate and the soil of Poland. Then she laid it down again at the same angle with the corner of the table which it had described before. "Iiousseau!" she said aloud to herself, " C"e.st un pen fort, mais'' — and paused, probably lor maturer reflection upon the end of her sentence. lO A DAUGHTEH OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER II. ''Leslie," said Mrs. Boll, making the unnecessary feminine twist to get a view of her hack hair from the mirror with a hand-glass, "aren't j'ou (h'Jiiihtal ! Try to he candid with yourself now, and own that she's tremendously improved." It would not have occurred to anybody hut Mrs. Bell to ask Mr. Leslie Bell to he candid with himself. Candour was written in large letters all over Mr. Leslie Bell's plain, broad countenance. So was a certain obstinacy, not of will, but adherence to prescribed principles, which might very well have been the result of living for twenty years with Mrs. Leslie Bell. Otherwise he was a thick-set man with an intelligent bald head, a fresh-coloured complexion, and a well-trimmed grey heard. Mr. Leslie Bell looked at life with logic, or thought he did, and took it with ease, in a plain way. He was known to be a good man of business, with a leaning toward generosity, and much independence of opinion. It was not a custom among election candidates to ask Leslie Bell for his vote. It was pretty well understood that nothing would influence it except his own ''views," and that none of the ordinary considerations in use w-ith refractory electors would influence his views. He was a man of large undemonstrative affections, and it was a matter of private regret with him that there should have been only one child, and that a daughter, to bestow them upon. His simi)licity of nature was utterly beyond the understanding of his wife, who had been building one elaborate theory after another about him ever since they had been married, conducting herself in mysterious accord- ance, but had arrived accurately only at the fact that he preferred two lumps of sugar in his tea. I A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. II Mr. Bell did not .allow his attention to be taken from the intricacies of Ir's toilet by his wife's question until she repeated it. '* Aren't you charmed with Elfrida, Leslie ? Hasn't Philadelphia improved her beyond your wildest dreams ? " Mr. Bell reflected. "You know I don't think I Elfrida has ever been as pretty as she was when she was five years old, Maggie." "Do say 'Margaret,'" interposed Mrs. Bell, plaintively. She had been suffering from this for twenty years. "It's of no use, my dear; I never remember unless there's company present. I was going to say Elfrida had certainly grown. She's got to her full size now, I should think ; and she dwarfs you, moth — Margaret . ' ' Mrs. Bell looked at him with tragic eyes. "Do you see no more in her than that?" she exclaimed. " She looks well, 1 admit she looks well. She seems to have got a kind of style in Philadelphia." " Style ! " "I don't mean fashionable style — a style of her own ; and according to the professors, neither the time nor the money has been wasted. But she's been a long year away, Maggie. It's been con- siderably dull without her for you and me. I hope she won't take it into her head to want to leave home again." "If it should be necessary to her plan of life " "It won't be necessary. She's nineteen now, and I'd like to see her settle down here in Sparta, and the sooner the better. Her painting will be an interest for her all her life, and if ever she should be badly off she can teach. That was my idea in giving her the training." 12 A DAUGUTEIl OF TO-DAY. *' Settle clown in Sparta ! " Mrs. Bell repeated, with a significant curve of her superior lip. •' Why, who is there " **Lots of people, though it isn't for me to name them, nor for you either, my dear. But speaking penerall}^ there isn't a town of its size in the Union with a finer crop of go-ahead young men in it than Sparta." Mrs. Bell was leaning against the inside shutter of their hedroom window, looking out while she waited for her husband. As she looked, one of Sparta's go-ahead young men, glancing up as he passed in the street below and seeing her there behind the panes, raised his hat. "Heavens, no!" said Mrs. Bell. ''You don't understand, Leslie." "Perhaps not," Mr. Bell returned. "We must get that packing-case opened after dinner. I'm anxious to see the pictures." Mr. Bell juit the finishing touches to his little finger-nail and briskly pocketed his penknife. " Shall we go downstairs now ? " he suggested. " Fix your brooch, mother; it's just on the drop." Elfrida Bell had been a long year away, a year that seemed longer to her than it possibly could to anybody in Sparta, as she privately reflected when her father made this observation for the second and the third time. Sparta accounted for its days chiefly in ledgers, the girl thought : there was a rising and a going do n of the sun, a little eating and drinking and speedy sleeping, a little discussion of the newspapers. Sparta got over its days by strides and stretches, and the strides and stretches seemed afterwards to have been made over gaps and gulfs, full of emptiness. The year divided itself and got its painted leaves, its white silences, its rounding buds, and its warm fragrances from the winds of heaven; and so there were four 1 A DAUGIITEU OF T(J-DAY. v") don't ii year could iccted L* the d for there little little er its and made year white ances four seasons in Sparta, and people talked of an early spring or a late fall: but Elfrida told herself that time had no other division and the days no other colour. Elfrida seemed to be unaware of the opening of the new South Ward Episcopal Metho- dist Church. She overlooked the municipal elections, too, the plan for overhauling the town water-works, and the reorganization of the public; library. She even forgot the Urowning Club. Whereas — though Elfrida would never have said ''whereas" — the days iu Philadelphia had been long and full. She had often lived a Aveek in one of them, and there had been hours that stretched themselves over an infinity of life and feeling, as Elfrida saw it, looking back. In reality her experience had been usual enough and poor enough, but it had fed her in a way, and she enriched it with her imagination and thought with keen and sincere pity that she had been starved till then. The question that preoccujned her when she moved out of the Philadelphia station in the Chicago train was that of future sustenance. It was under the surface of her thoughts when she kissed her father and mother, and was made welcome home ; it raised a mute remonstrance against Mr. Bell's cheerful prophecy that she would be content to stay in Sparta for a while now, and get to know the young society ; it neutralized the pleasure of the triumphs in the packing-box. Besides, their real delight had all been exhaled at the students' exhibition in Philadelphia, vvhen Philadelphia looked at them. The opinion of Sparta, Elfrida thought, was not a matter for anxiety. Sparta would be pleased in advance. Elfrida allowed one extenuating point in her indictment of Sparta. The place had produced her, as she was at eighteen, when they sent her to Philadelphia. This was only half-conscious — she ! t 14 A DAUGDTEU OF TO-DAY. was able to formulate it later — but it influenced lier sincere and vigorous disdain of the town correctively, and we may believe that it ojoerated to except her father and mother from the general wreck of her opinion to a greater extent than any more ordinary feeling did. It was not in the least a sentiment of alfection for her birth-place : if slie could have chosen, she would very mucli have preferred to be born somewhere else. It was simply an important qualifying circumstance. IJcr actual and her ideal self, her most mysterious and interesting self, had originated in the air and the opportunities of Bparta ; 8parta had even done her the service of showing her that she was unusual, by contrast, and Elfrida thought that she ought to be thankful to somebody or something for being as unusual as she was. She had had a comfort- able, spoilt feeling of gratitude for it before she went to rhiladclphia, which had developed in the mean time into a shudder at the mere thought of what it meant to be an ordinary person. "I could bear not to be charming," said she some- times, to her Philadelphia looking-glass, " but I could not bear not to be clever." She said *' clever," but she meant more than that. Elfrida Bell believed that something other than cleverness entered into her personal equation. She looked sometimes into her very soul to see what, but the writing there was in strange characters that faded under her eyes, leaving her uncompre- hending, but tranced. Meanwhile, art spoke to her from all sides, linding her responsive and more responsive. Some books, some pictures, some music brought her a curious exalted sense of double life. She could not talk about it at all, but she could slip out into the wet streets on a gusty October evening, and walk miles exulting in it, and in the light on the puddles and in the rain on her A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 15 uciiccd I town )cratc"(l general an any ic least if sIju I have It was }. IJcr LIS and nd the iiic licr lusiial, ought • bemg mfort- I'e sliG in the loiight .. ''I somc- "but ) said than She what, icters npre- ke to and ures, ise of I, but 5usty , and 1 her face, coming back, it must be admitted, with, rod chocks and an excellent appetite. It Jed her into strange al)sent silences and ways of liking to be alone, which gratilied her mother and worried her father. When Klfrida burned the gas of S[)arta late in her own room, it was always her father wlio saw the light under the door, and who came and knocked and told her it was after eleven and high time she was in bed. ^Irs. Bell usually pro- tested. ''How can the child reach any true de- velopment," she asked, "if you interfere with her like this?" To which Mr. Bell usually replied that whatever she developed, he did; .'t want it to l)c headaches and hysteria. Elfrida invariably answered, " Yes, papa," with complete docility ; Init it must be said that Mr. Bell generally knocked in vain, and the more perfect the submission of the daughterly reply, the later the gas would be apt to burn. Elfrida was always agreeable to her father. So far as she thought of it, she 'svas appreciatively fond of him ; but the relation pleased her, it was one that could be so charmingly sustained. For already out of the other world she walked in, the world of strange kinships and insights and recogni- tions, where she saw truth afar off and worshipped, and as often met falsehood in the way and turned raptly to follow, the girl had drawn a vague and many-shaped idea of artistic living which embraced the hlial attitude among others less explicable. It gave her pleasure to do certain things in certain ways. She stood and sat and spoke, and even thought, at times, with a subtle approval and enjoyment of her manner of doing it. It was not actual artistic achievement, but it w^as the sort of thing that entered her imagination as such achieve- ment's natural corollary. Her self-consciousness was a supreme fact of her personality — it began earlier than any date she could remember, and it 1 6 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ^vlls a channel of tlio most unfailing; and intense satisfaction to her from many sources. One was lier beauty, for she had developed an elusive ])eauty that served her moods. When she was dull she called herself ugly — unfairly, though her face lost tremendously in value then, — and her general dislike of dulness and ugliness became particular and acute in connection with herself. It is not too much to say that she took a keen enjoying pleasure in the Hush upon her own cheek and the light in her own eyes, no less than in the inward sparkle that provoked it, — an honest delight, she would not have minded confessing it. Her height, her sym- metry, her perfect abounding health were separate joys to her ; she found absorbing and critical interest in the very figment of her being. It was entirely preposterous that a young woman should kneel at an attic window in a flood of spring moon- light, with her hair about the shoulders of her nightgown, repeating Ilossetti to the wakeful bud- ding garden, especially as it was for herself she did it, nobody else saw her. She knelt there partly because of vague desire to taste the essence of the spring and the garden and Rossetti at once, and partly because she felt the romance of the foolish situation. She knew of the shadow her hair made round her throat, and that her eyes were glorious in the moonlight. Going back to bed, she paused before the looking-glass, and wafted a kiss, as she blew the candle out, to the face she saw there. It was such a pretty face, and so full of the spirit of llossetti and the moonlight that she couldn't help it. Then she slept, dreamlessly, comfortably, and late ; and in the morning she had never taken cold. rhiladelphia had pointed and sharpened all this. The girl's training there had vitalized her brood- ing dreams of producing what she worshipped, had I A DAIIGIITKU OF TO-DAV. •7 itcnso 10 ^vas )eauty U slio 3C lost ClUTJll iciilju* lot too Dasiu'o in Ik r .0 that 1(1 not " sym- parato !i'itical It was should moon- of her 1 bud- he did partly of the e, and foolish made orious aused s she e. It irit of t help , and taken |l this. )i'ood- |d, had I ^ivcn shape Jind direction to her iiii'orinal cft'orts, luid concentrated them ui)on charcoal and canvas. Tliere was an enthusiasm for work in the Institute, a canonizati(m of names, a blazing desire to imitate that tried hard to fan itself into originality. I'llfrida kindled at once, and felt that her soul had lodged for ever in her iuigers, that art had found for hi-r, once for all, a sacred embodiment. She spoke with suljdued feeling of its other shapes, she was at all points sympathetic ; but she was no longer at all points desirous. Ilcr aim was taken. She would not write novels, or compose operas : she would paint. There was some renunciation in it, and some humility. The day she came home, look- ing over a dainty sandal-wood box full of early vi'rscs twice locked against her mother's eye, " The desire of the moth for the star ! " she said to her- sdf ; but she did not tear them up. That would have been brutal. I^lfrida wanted to put off opening the case that held her year's work until next day. She quailed somewhat in anticipation of her parents' criticisms, as a matter of fact ; she would have preferred to postpone parrying them. She acknowledged this to herself with a little irritation that it should be so ; but when her father insisted, chisel in hand, she went down on her knees with charming willing- ness to help him. Mrs. Bell took a seat on the sofa, and clasped her hands with the expression of one who prepares for prayer. One by one Mr. Leshe Bell drew out his daughter's studies and copies, cutting their strings, clearing them of their paper wrappings, and stand- ing each separately against the wall in his crisp liusinesslike way. They were all mounted and framed, they stood very well against the wall ; but Mr. Bell, who began hopefully, was presently ol)liged to try to hide his disappointment, the row c i i8 A DAUGiri'Lll 01' TO-DAY. L»> v,'i\H Ro persistciiily black and wliite. Mrs. ]k'll, on tlic Kofa, had tliu look of postponing' her devotions. ** You seem to have done a great many of tlicsc — etchings," said ]\rr. Ikill. "Oh, papa! They're not etcliinf^^s ; they're siihje(;ts in eliarcoal — from casts and things." *' They do you credit — I've no doubt they do you credit. 'J'hey'ro very nicely drawn," returned her father ; *' but they're a good deal alike. "We won't be able to hang more than two of them in the same room. AVas that what they gave you the medal for?" Mr. LcU indicated a drawing of rsyche. The lines were delicate, expressive, and false ; the relief was imperfect, yet the feeling was undeniably caught. As a drawing it was incorrect enough, but its charm lay in a subtle spiritual something that had worked into it from the girl's own fingers jind made the beautiful empty classic face modcrnly interesting. In view of its inaccuracy the com- mittee had been guilty of a most irregular proceed- ing in recognizing it with a medal, but in a very young art school this might be condoned. " It's a perfectly lovely thing," interposed Mrs. Bell, from the sofa. ** I'm sure it deserves one." Elfrida said nothing. The study was ticketed ; it had obviously won a medal. Mr. Bell looked at it critically. "Yes, it's certainly well done. In spite of the frame — I wouldn't give ten cents for the frame — the effect is line. We must find a good light for that. Oh, now we come to the oil paintings. We both })VQ- sumed you would do well at the oil paintings, and, for my part," continued Mr. Bell, definitely, " I like them best. There's more variety in them." He was holding at arm's length, as he spoke, an oblong scrap of filmy blue sky and marshy green fields, in a preposterously wide fiat dull gold frame, A DACGIITKU OF TO-DAY. 19 Pk-II, on motions. oi tlicsc y do yi)U .•110(1 hoi' Xc won't the siimc 10 modal lie. The Ise ; the idoniably enough, 3mething rn fingoi'B modcnily the coin- procood- n a vory sed Mrs. s one." icketed ; Yes, it's Tame — I e effect is lat. Oh, )oth pro- ngs, and, itely, '' I Q them." spoke, an hy green Id frame, « and lookhig at it in a puzzled way. Presently ho reversed it, and h)okoa," EIlVi(hi said; "you luid it right side lip hol'oro." She was biting lior lip, iind struggling with the desire to pile them all hack into the 1)()X and shut tlu; lid, and stand on it. "Tliiit's ex(|nisite ! " murniurod ^Irs. liell, when Mr. Jiell had lighted it ngain. *' It's one of the worst," said Klfrida hriellv. ]\lr. Boll looked reliovod. " Since that's your own opinion, lllfrida," he said, " I don't mind saying that I do not CJiro much about it eitlur. It looks as if vou'd got tired of it before vou linishod it." "])oosit?" Klfrida said. *' Now this is a much better thing, in my ()l)inion," her father went on, standing tlie pieturo of an old woman behind an apple-stall along the wall with the rest. *' I don't protend to be a judge, l»ut I know what 1 like, and I like that. It explains itself." " It's a lovely bit of colour," remarked ^Irs. IJoll. Elfrida smiled. '* Thank you, mamma," she said, and kissed her. When the box was exhausted, Mr. Boll walked up and down for a few minutes in front of the row against the wall, with his hands in his pockets, rclleeting, while Mrs. Boll discovered now beauties to the author of them. " We'll hang this lot in the dining-room," ho said at length, " and those black and wliitos with the oak mountings in the parlour — they'll go best with the wall-paper there." " Yes, papa." " And I hope j'ou won't mind, Elfrida," ho added, " but I've promised that they should have one of your paintings to raffle off" in the bazaar 20 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. for the alterations in the Sunday School next ^veek." " Oh no, papa. I shall be delighted." Elfrida was sitting beside her mother on the sofa, and, at the close of this proposition, 'Mv. Bell came and sat there too. There was silence for a moment while they all three confronted the line of pictures leaning against the wall. Then Elfrida began to laugh, and she went on laughing, to the astonishment of her parents, until the tears came into her eyes. She stopped as suddenly, kissed her mother and father, and went upstairs. " I'm afraid you've hurt her feelings, Leslie," said Mrs. Bell, when she had well gone. But Elfrida's feelings had not been hurt, though or.e might say that the evening left her sense of humour rather sore. At that moment she was dallying with the temptation to describe the whole scene in a letter to a valued friend in Philadelphia, who would have appreciated it with mirth. In the end she did not write. It would have been too humiliating. CHAPTER III. "Pas mal, parbleu ! " Lucien remarked with pursed-out lips, running his fingers through his shock of coarse hair and reflectively scratching the top of his big head as he stepped closer to Nudie Palicsky's elbow, where she stood at her easel, in his crowded atelier. T^e girl turned and looked keenly into his face, seekmg his eyes, which were on her work with a considering interested look. Satisfied, she sent a glance of joyous triumi)h at a somewhat older woman whose place was next, and who was listening with the amiable effacement of A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 21 ool next r on tlic ^[r. Bell ice for ti be line of [1 Elfridta ig, to tlic ars came [y, kisped , Leslie," t, tliongli • sense of she was the whole aclelphia, 1. In the jeen too ccl with Dugh his hing the to Nadie easel, in d looked ich were ed look, nph at a lext, and enient of countenance that is sometimes a more or less successful disguise for chagrin. On this occasion it seemed to fail, for Mademoiselle Palicsky turned her attention to Lucien and her work again with a slight raising of the eyebrows and a slighter sigh. Her face assumed a gentle melancholy, as if she were pained at the exhibition of a weakness of her sex, yet it was unnecessary to be an acute observer to road there the hope that Lucien's significant phrase had not by any chance escaped her neighbour. "The drawing of the neck," Lucien went on, '•is excellently brutal." Njidie wished he would speak a little louder, but Lucien always arranged tlie carrying power of his voice according to the susceptibilities of the atelier. He thrust his hands into his pockets, and still stood beside her, looking at her study of the nude model who posed upon a table iu the midst of the students. '' In you, mademoiselle," he added, in a tone yet lower, " I lind the woman and the artist divorced. That is a vast advantage — an immense source of power. I am growing more certain of you — j'ou are not merely cleverly eccentric, as I thought. You have a great deal that no one can teach you. You have 'finished that. I wish to take it downstairs to sh')w to the men. It will not be jeered at, I promise you." " Cher maitre ! You mean it ? " *'13ut certainly!" The girl handed him the study with a look of almost doglike gratitude in her narrow grey eyes. Lucien had never said so much to her before, though the whole atelier had noticed how often he had been coming to her easel lately, and had dis- paraged her in corners accordingly. She looked at the tiny silver watch she wore in a leather strap on her left wrist— he had spent nearly live minutes with her this time, watching her work and talking 9 A DxVUGIlTER OF TO-DAY. to her,— in itself a triumph. It was ahiiost four o'clock, and the winter daylight was going ; pre- sently they would all stop work. Partly for the pleasure of being chaffed and envied and compli- mented in the anteroom in the general washing of brushes, and partly to watch Lucien's rapid pro- gress among the remaining easels, Mademoiselle Palicsky deliberately sat down in a prematurely vacant chair, swung one slender little limb over the other, and waited. As she sat there a generous thought rose above her exultation. She hoped everybody else in the atelier had guessed what Lucien was saying to her all that while, and had seen him carry off her day's work — but not the little American. The little American, who was at least thirteen inches taller than Mademoiselle Palicsky, was sufficiently discouraged already, and it was pathetic, in view of almost a year of failure, to see how she clung to her ghost of a talent. Besides, the little American admired Njidie Palicsky, her friend, her comrade, quite enough already. Elfrida had heard, nevertheless. She listened eagerly, tensely, as she always did when Lucien opened his lips in her neighbourhood. When she saw him take the sketch to show in the men's atelier downstairs, to exhibit to that horde of animals below whose studies and sketches and compositions were so constantly brought up for the stimulus and instruction of Lucien's women students, she grew suddenly so white that the girl who worked next her, a straw-coloured Swede, asked her if she were ill, and offered her a little green bottle of salts of lavender. " It's that beast of a calorifere," the Swede said, nodding at the hideous black cylinder that stood near them ; " they will always make it too hot." •Elfrida waved the salts back hastily; Lucien was coming her wav. She worked seated, and as i I A J)AUGIITER OF TO-DAY. 23 Imost four oing ; pre- ily for tlio id com pi i- wasbiiifT of rapid pro- demoisollo •ematurely limb over I generous >lie hoped ?sed ^Yhat ^ and had t not the ho was at lemoisellc eady, and of failure, a talent. s Palicsk}^ Tady. listened n Lucien When she he men's horde of ches and it up for s women t the girl Swede, r a little lat beast g at the r them; Lucien , and as #:• he scorned on the point of passing with merely a casual glance and an ambiguous " Il'm ! " she started up. The movement effectually arrested him, unintentional though it seemed. lie frowned slightly, thrusting his hands deep into his coat pockets, and looked again. ''We must find a l)etter place for you, made- moiselle ; you can make nothing of it here, so close to the model, and below him thus." lie would have gone on, but, in spite of his intention to avert his eyes, he caught the girl's glance, and something infinitely appealing in it stayed him again. "Mademoiselle," he said, with visible irritation, " there is nothing to say that I have not said many times already ! Your drawing is still lady-like, your colour is still pretty, and sapristi ! you have worked with, me a year ! Still," he added, recollecting himself — Lucien never lost a student by over-candour — "considering your difficult place, the shoulders are not so bad. Continucz, mademoiselle." The girl's eyes were fastened immovably upon her work, as she sat down pgain, painting rapidly in an ineffectual meaningless way, with the merest touch of colour in her brush. Her face glowed with the deepest shame that had ever visited her. Lucien was scolding the Swede soundly ; she had disappointed him, he said. Elfrida felt heavily how impossible it was that she should disappoint him. And they had all heard, the English girl in the South Kensington gown, the rich New Yorker, Nadie's rival the lloumanian, Nudie herself; and they were all, except the last, working more vigorously for hearing. Nadie had turned her head away, and so far as the back of a neck and the tips of two cars could express oblivion of what had passed, it might have been gathered from hers. But Elfrida knew l)ettor, and she resented the pity 24 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ! ! ' of the pretence more than if slie head met Made- moiselle Palicsky's long light grey eyes full of derisive laughter. For a year she had Ijcen in it and of it, that intoxicating life of the Quartier Latin. Bo much in it that she had gladly forgotten any former one ; so much of it that it had hecome treason to helievc existence supportable under any other conditions. It was her pride that she had felt everything from the beginning ; her instinctive apprehension of all that is to be apprehended in the passionate fantastic vivid life on the left side of the Seine had Ijcen a conscious joy from the day she had taken her tiny apartment in the Hue Porte lioyale, and bought her colours and sketching-block from a dwarf-like little dealer in the next street, who assured her proudly that he supplied Henner and Dagnan-Bouveret, and moreover knew precisely what she wanted from experience. " Moi aussi, mademoiselle, je suis artiste ! " She had learnt nothing, she had absorbed everything. It seemed to her that she had entered into her inheritance, and that in the possessions that throng the Quartier Latin she was born to be rich. In thinking this, she had an overpowering realization of the poverty of Sparta — so convincing that she found it unnecessary to tell herself that she would never go back there. That was the unconscious pivotal supposition in everything she thought, or said, or did. After the first bewildering day or two, when the exquisite thrill of Paris captured her indefinitely, she felt the full tide of her life turn and flow steadily in a new direction, with a delight of revelation and an ecstasy of promise that mt.de nothing in its sweep of every emotion that had not its birth and growth in art, and forbade the mere consideration of anything that might be an obstacle, as if it were a sin. She entered her new A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 25 QC't Made- es full of >f it, that So much mer one ; to believe Diiditions. ling from ion of all fantastic bad been aken her ale, and I'rom a 3et, who uner and precisely oi aussi, d learnt seemed sritance, t»ng the h. In lization hat she e would •nscious ght, or day or red her fe turn delight t mt.do lad not mere be an er new world with proud recognition of its unwritten laws, its unsanctilied morale, its riotous overflowing ideals ; and she was instant in gathering that to see, to comprehend these was to be thrice blessed, as not to sec, not to comprehend them was to dwell in outer darkness with the bourgeois, and the ** sand-paper " artists, and others who arc without hope. It gave her moments of pure de- light to reflect how little "the people" suspected the reality of the existence of such a world, not- withstanding all they read and all they professed, and how absolutely exclusive it was in tlie very nature of nature. How it had its own languago untranslatable, its own creed unbelievable, its own customs unfathomable by outsiders, and yet among the true-born how divinely simple recognition was ! Her allegiance had the loyalty of every fibre of her being ; her scorn of the world she had left was too honest to permit any posing in that regard. The life at Sparta assumed the colours and very much the significance depicted on a bit of faded tapestry ; when she thought of it, it was to groan that so many of her young impressionable years had been wasted there. She hoarded her years, now that every day and every hour was suffused with its individual pleasure, or interest, or that keen artistic x^^iii which also had its value, as a sensa- tion, in the Quartier Latin. It distressed her to think that she was almost twenty- one. The interminable year that intervened between Elfrida's return from Philadelphia and her triumph in the matter of being allowed to go to Paris to study, she had devoted mainly to the society of the Swiss governess in the Sparta Seminary for young ladies — Methodist Episcopal, — with the successful object of getting a working knowledge of French. There had been a certain amount of "young society " too, and one or two incipient love affairs, 26 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. !"'! Aviitoliod with anxious interest l)y her father, and ^vith a harrowed conficience by her mother, who knew Elfrida's capacity for amusinp; herself ; and nnhmited opportunities had occurred for the tacit exhibition of Iier superiority to Sparta, of which she had not always taken advantage. But the significance of the year gathered into the French lessons ; it was by virtue of these that the time had a place in her memory. Mademoiselle Joubert supplemented her instruction with a violent affec- tion, a great deal of her society, and the most entertainingly modern of the French novels which Brentano sent her monthly in enticing packets — her single indulgence. So that, after the first confusion of a multitude of tongues in the irrele- vant Parisian key, Elfrida found herself reasonably lluent and fairly at ease. The illumined jargon of the atelier stayed with her naturally — she never forgot a word or a phrase; and in two months she was babbling and mocking with the rest. She lived alone — she learnt readily to do it on eighty francs a month, — and her (tppartemenf, became charming in three weeks. She divined what she should have there, and she managed to get extraordinary bargains in myslery and history out of the dealers in such things, so cracked and so rusty, so moth-eaten, and of such excellent colour, that the escape of the combined effect from Ixnialitc was a marvel. She had a short sharp struggle with her American taste for simple elegance in dress, and overthrew it, aiming, with some success, at originality instead. She found it easy, in Paris, to invest her striking personality in a distinctive costume, sufficiently becoming and sufficiently odd, of which a broad soft felt hat, which made a delightful brigand of her, and a Hungarian cloak formed important features. The Hungarian cloak suited her so extremely well that A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 27 tliCT, and ihcr, ^vh() =5olf; and the t.acit of which J3nt the Frencli the time e Joiil)ert nt affec- ihe most 3ls which )ackets — the first lie iiTcle- casonably d jargon he never months st. do it on ^artcmcnt divined 11 aged to i history ked and excellent ect from .'t sharp simple ng, with c found 'sonality ing and felt hat, , and a s. The 'cll that artistic considerations compelled her to \vtar it occasionally, I fear, when o*-her people would have found it uncomfortably warm. In nothing that she said or did, admired or condemned, was there any trace of the conimon- placc, except, perhaps, the desire to avoid it. It had become her conviction that she owed this to herself. She was thoroughly popular in the atelier ; her j)^7//.9 sotipcrs were so good, her enthusiasms so generous, her drawing so bad. The other pupils declared that she had a head '' (lirincnicHt frnfiiquc,'' and for those of them she liked she sometimes posed, filling impressive parts in their weekly compositions. They all knew the little apartment in the Rue Porte Royale, more or less well according to the favour with which they were received. Njidie Palicsky, perhaps, knew it l)est, — Njidie Palicsky and her friend Monsieur Audio Yambery, who always accompanied her when she came to Elfrida's in the evening, finding it im- possible to allow her to be out alone at night, which Nadie confessed agreeable to her vanity but a bore. Elfrida found it difficult, in the beginning, to admire the friend. He was too small for dignity, and Mademoiselle Palicsky's inspired comparison of his long black hair to " scrjwnts //o/y-.s" left her unimpressed. Moreover she thought she detected about him a personal odour which was neither tliat of sanctity nor any other abstraction. It took time and conversation, and some acquaintance with values as they obtain at the Kcole des Beaux Arts, and the knowledge of what it meant to be "selling," to lift Monsieur Vambery to his proper place in her regard. After that she blushed that he had ever held any other. But from the first Elfrida had been conscious of a kind of pride in her unshrinking acceptance of the situation. She 2cS A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. and NfUlie had cxclmnpjed a pledge of some sort, when Mademoiselle Palicsky hethought herself of the unconfessed fact. She gave Elfrida a narrow look, and then leant back in her low chair, and bent an impertVi bable gaze npon the slender spiral of the smoke that rose from the end of her cigarette. ** It is necessary, now, that you should know, petite, nobody else does, Lucien would be sure to make a fuss ; but — I have a lover, and we have decided al)Out marriage that it is ridiculous. It is a hntrr Amc — you ouglit to know Andre; but if it makes any difference " Elfrida reflected afterwards with satisfaction, that she had not even changed colour, though she had found the communication electric. It seemed to her that there had been something dignified, noble almost, in the answer she had made, with a smile that acknowledged the fact that the world had scruples on such accounts as these, " Cela m'est absolument egal." So far as the life went it was perfect. The Quartier spoke and her soul answered it ; and the world had nothing to compare with a conversation like that. But the question of production, of achievement, was beginning to bring her moments when she had a terrible sensation that the temperature of her passion was chilled. She had not yet seen despair, but she had now and then lost her hold of herself, and she had made acquaintance with fear. There had been no vivid realization of failure, but a problem was beginning to form in her mind, and with it a distinct terror of the solution which sometimes found a shape in her dreams. In waking, voluntary m6ments she would see her problem only as an unanswerable enigma. Yet in the beginning she had felt a splendid confidence. Her appropriation of theory had been so brilHant and so rapid, her instinctive A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 29 some sort, 1 herself of a a narrow chair, and ndor spiral r cigarette, aid know, be sure to 1 we have oils. It is ; hut if it tisfaction, hough she It seemed dignified, lade, with the world ;e, '^Cela set. The ; and the versation ction, of moments ihat the She had ind then id made no vivid eginiiing ct terror shape ill mts she werable felt a f theory itinctive appreciation had helped itself out so well with the casual formulas of the schools, she seemed to jierself to have an absolute understanding of cxpi't'ssion. She held her social place among the others by her power of perception, and that, with the c()m])lL'teness of hor repudiation of the bourgeois, had given her Nadie Palicsky, whom the rest found diflicuU, variable, unreasonable. I'Mfrida was certain that if she might only talk to Lueien she could persuade him of a groat deal about her talent that escaped him — she was sure it escaped him — in the mere cxaminntion of hor work. It chafed her always that her personality could not touch the master, that she must day after day be only the dumb submissive pupil. She felt sometimes that there were things she might say to Lueien which would be interesting and valuable for him to hear. Lueien was always non-committal for the first few months. Everybody said so, and it was natural enough. Elfrida set her teeth against his silences, his casual looks and ambiguous encouragements, for a length of time which did iiiiinite credit to her determination. She felt herself capable of an eternity of pain ; she was proudly conscious of a willingness to oppose herself to innumerable discouragements, to back her talent, as it were, against all odds. That was historic, dignified, to be expected ! But in the inmost privacy of her soul she had conceived the character of the obstacles she was prepared to face, and the list resolutely excluded any idea that it might not be worth while. Indifference and contempt cut at the very roots of her pledges to herself. As she sat listening on this afternoon to the vivid terms of Lucien's disapproval of what the Swede had done, she had a sharp consciousness of this severance. 30 A DAUGllTEll OF TO-DAY. < I She Lad nothing to say to any one in the general babble ot the anteroom, and nobody noticed her white face and resolute eyes particularly — tlio Americans were always so pale and so cralfr. Njidie kept away from her. Kll'rida had to cross the room and bring her, witli a little touch of angry assertion upon the arm, from the middle of the group slie had drawn around her, on purpose as her friend knew. " I want you to dine with me — really dine," she said, and her voice was both eager and repressed. ** We will go to liabaudin's; one gets an e^'ellent haricot there, and you shall have that little white cheese that you love. Come ! I want you particularly. I will even make him bring champagne — anything ! " Nudie gave her a (piick look, and made a little theatrical gesture of delight. "Quel bonheur!" she cried for the benefit of the others ; and then, in a lower tone, " But not Babaudin's, potite ! Andre will not permit Babaudin's ; he says it is not conrcnablc.'' And she threw up her (yes with mock resignation. ** Say Papaud's. They keep their feet off tlie table at Papaud's : there are fewer of those Jfcfcn dcs Ancilais.^' "Papfi-ud's is cheaper," Elfrida returned darkly. " The few English who dine at Babaudin's behave perfectly well. I will not be insulted about the cost. I'll be answerable to Anare. You don't lie as a general thing. And why not ! I can afford it, truly. You need not be distressed." Mademoiselle Palicsky looked into the girl's tense face for an instant, and laughed a gay assent. But to herself she said, as she finished drying her brushes on an inconceivably dirty bit of cotton, " She has found herself out — she has come to the truth. She lirs discovered that it is not in her, and she is coming to me for corroboration. i A DAUGllTKK OF TO-DAY. 31 lie ^'cneral oticcd lier ihirly— the HO ('.mill''. (I to cross touch of middle of )ii i)iiri)o.so dine," she repressed, ey^ellent Iiat Jittlo I want im bring de a little )nlieur! " md then, 1, petite ! ays it is yes uith iey keep here are 1 darkly. s behave bout the don't lie n afford le girl's 1 a gay finished ty bit of IS come i is not oration. AVell, I ^\•ill not p[ivc it, me. It is extremely dis- agreeable, and 1 have not the courage. Ponrqnoi (lone I I ^vill send her to ^lonsieur John Kendal — she may make him responsible. He will break lier, but he will not lie ij her; they sacrifice all to their consciences, tliose J'iUglish ! And now, you good-natured fool, you are in for a devil of an evenin'' ! " CHAPTER IV. (( TnuEE months more," Ell'rida Bell said to herself next morning, in the act of boiling an egg over a tiny kerosene stove in the cupboard that served her as a kitchen, "and I will put it to every test I know. Three unflinching months ! JohnKendnl will not have gone back to England b}' that time ; 1 shall still get his opinion. If he is only as encouraging as Nadie was last night, dear thing ! I almost forgave her for being so much — much cleverer than I am. Oh, letters ! " as a heavy knock repeated itself upon the door of the room outside. There was only one; it was thrust beneath the door, showing a white triangle to her expectancy as she ran out to secure it, while the fourth flight creaked under Madame Vamousin descending. She picked it up with a light heart. She was young and she had slept. Yesterday's strain had passed ; she was ready to count yesterday's experience among the things that must be met. Nadie had been so sensible about it. This was a letter from home, and the American mail was not due until next day. Inside there would be news of a little pleasure trip to New York which her father and 32 A DAUGHTKIJ OF 'lO-DAV. mother liud hvcn pliiiiniii'^' liitcly — Klfrichi cou- Ktiiiitly iir<;('(l upon Iicr i)arents tlio lucesHity of ainusiii;^ tlicmsclvt's — iiiid a ruinittaiicc. Tho remittance would l)o more tlian usually Mclcomo, for hIic was a little in debt — a mere tritlc, lilty or sixty francs, but I'llfrida liatcd bein^^ in debt. She tore tho end of the envelope across with absolute satisfaction, which was only half chiikMl when she open(>d out each of the four closely-written sheets of foreij^n letter paper in turn and saw that the usual postal order was not there. ] laving' ascertained this, however, she went back to her c^', the jam '. ohl blue. d and tlic h-mended a coronet n- several was still possible ark eyes a line or lips were uc :, her attitude test pos- ite bend. for the ss. She lad been Indubit- his age , after a life of comparative luxury, of subsisting even in Sparta on eight hundred dollars a year, could not be an inviting one for either of her parents. "When she thought of their giving up the white-brick house in Columbia Avenue and going to live in Cox Street, Klfrida was thoroughly grieved. She felt the sincerest gratitude, however, that the mis- fortune had not come sooner, before she had learned the true signilicancc of living, while yet it mi',dit have placed her in a state of ])lind irreso- lution which would probably have lasted in- delhiitely. After a year in Paris she was able to make u\) her mind, and this she could not con- gratulate herself upon suilticiently, since a decision at the moment was of such vital importance. For one point upon which Mrs. Leslie's letter insisted regretfully but strongly was that the next remit- tance, which they hoped to be able to send in a week or two, would necessarily be the last. It would be as large as they could make it, at all events it would amply cover her passage and rail- way expenses to Sparta ; and of course she would sail as soon as it reached her. It was an elaborate letter, written in phrases which Mrs. Leslie thought she evolved, but probably remembered from a long and comprehensive course of fiction, as appropriate to the occasion ; and Elfrida read between the lines with some impatience how largely their trouble was softened to her mother by the consideration that it would inevitably bring her back to them. " We can bear it well if we bear it together," wrote Mrs. Bell. " You have always been our brave daughter, and your young courage will be invaluable to us now. Your talents will be our flowers by the wayside : we shall take the keenest possible delight in watching them expand, as, even under the cloud of financial adversity, we know they will." " Dear over-confident parent," Elfrida reflected D 34 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. grimly at this point, " I must j'et prove that I have . " 1 I ail} Along with the situation she studied elaborately the third page of the Sparta Sentinel. When it arrived months before, containing the best part of a long letter describing Paris, which she had written to her mother in the lirst freshness of her delighted impressions, she had glanced over it with half-amused annoyance at the foolish parental pride that had suggested printing it. She was already too remote from the life of Sparta to care very much one way or the other, but such feeling as she had was of that sort. And the compli- ments from the minister, from various members of the Browning Club, from the editor himself, that liltered through her mother's letters during the next two or three weeks, made her shrug with their absolute irrelevance to the only praise that could thrill her and the only purpose she held dear. Even now, when the printed lines contained the significance of a possible resource, she did not give so much as a thought to the flattering opinion of Sparta, as her mother had conveyed it to her. She road them over and over, relying desperately on her own critical sense and her knowledge of what the Paris correspondent of the Dailij Dial thought of her chances in that direction. He, Frank Parke, had told her once, that if her brush failed, she had only to try her pen, though he made use of no such commonplace as that. He said it, too, at the end of half an hour's talk with her, only half an hour. Elfrida, when she wished to be exact with her vanity, told herself that it could not have been more than twenty-five minutes. She wished for particular reasons to be exact with it n">w, and she did not fail to give proper weight to the fact that Frank Parke had never seen her before that day. The Paris correspondent of the A DAUGIITEIl OF TO-DAY. liat I have lahoratcly When it }st part of slio had less of her ier it with parental She was L'ta to care ch feeling le compH- lembers of nself, that luring the hrng with )raise that ! she held contained he did not Qg opinion it to her. csperately )wledge of )aUij Dial on. He, her brush hough he that. He talk with he wished 3lf that it e minutes. 3xact with )er weight : seen her nt of the London Daily Dial was well enough known to bo of the monde, and rich enough to be as bourgeois as anybody. Therefore the i^eoplo who knew him thought it odd that at his age this gentleman should prefer the indelicacies of the Quartier to those of "tout Paris," and the bad vermouth and cheap cigars of the Luxembourg to the peculiarly excellent quality of champagne with which the President's wife made her social atonement to the Faubourg St. Germain. But it was so, and its being so rendered Frank Parke's opinion that Miss Bell could write if she chose to try, not only supremely valuable to her, but available for the second time if necessary, which was perhaps more important. There would be a little more money from Sparta, perhaps one hundred and fifty dollars. It would come in a week, and after that there would be none. But a supjily of it, however modest, must be arranged somehow ; there were the frais of the atelier, to speak of nothing else. The necessity was irritatingly absolute. Elfrida wished that her scruples were not so acute about arranging it by writing for the press. " If I could think for a moment that I had any right to it as a means of expression ! " she reflected. " But I haven't — it is an art for others. And it is an art — as sacred as mine. I have no business to degrade it to my uses." Her mental position when she went to see Frank Parke was a cynical compromise with her artistic conscience, of which she nevertheless regretted the necessity. The correspondent of the Dailtj Dial had a club for one side of the river, and a cale for the other. He dined oftenest at the cafe, and Elfrida's card, with "urgent" inscribed in pencil on it, was brought to him that evening as he was finishing his coffee. She had no difficulty in getting it taken in. Mr. Parke's theory was that a newspaper man w^ 11 i' 36 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. gained more than lie lost by accessibility. He came out immediately, furtively returning a tooth- pick to his waistcoat pocket, a bald stout gentle- man of middle age, dressed in loose grey clothes, with shrewd eyes, a nose which his benevolence just saved from being hawk-like, a bristling white moustache, and a pink double chin. It rather I)leiised Frank Parke, who was born in Hammer- smith, to be so constantly taken for an American, presumably a New Yorker. ** Monsieur " began Elfrida, a little formally. She would not have gone on in French, but it was her way to use this form with the men she knew in Paris, irrespective of their nationality, just as she invariably addressed letters which were to be delivered in Sparta, Illinois, " a madame Leslie Bell, Avenue Columbia " of that municipality. " Miss Elfrida, I am delighted to see you," he interrupted her, stretching out one hand and taking out his watch with the other. *' I am fortunate in having fifteen whole minutes to put at your dis- posal. At the end of that time I have an appoint- ment with a Cabinet Minister who would rather see the devil. So I must be punctual. Shall we walk i£. bit along these dear boulevards, or shall I get a fiacre ? No ? You're quite right ; Paris was made for eternal walking. Now, what is it, my dear child?" Mr. Parke had already concluded that it was money, and had fixed the amount he would lend. It was just half of what Mademoiselle Knike of Paolo Eossi's had succeeded in extracting from him last week. He liked having a reputation for amiability among the ateliers, but he must not let it cost too much. Elfrida felt none of that benumbing shame which sometimes seizes those who would try literature confessing to those who have succeeded in it, and A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. o7 it3% He ; a tooth- it gentle- ■f clothes, levolence ing white [t rather lammer- Linerican, formally. )ut it was 3 knew in st as she re to be ae Leslie ility. you j> he nd taking tunate in your dis- . appoint- Id rather Shall we or shall bt ; Paris t is it, my at it was mid lend. Knike of from him ation for st not let me which literature in it, and the occasion was too important for the decorative diffidence that might have occurred to her if it had been trivial. She had herself well gathered together, and she w^ould have been concise and direct, even if there had been more than fifteen minutes. "One afternoon last September at Njulie Palic- sky's — there is no chance that you will remember, but I assure you it is so — you told me that I might, if I tried — write, monsieur." The concentration of Miss Bell's purpose in her voice made itself felt where Frank Parke kept his acuter perceptions, and put them at her service. "I remember perfectly," he said. "Jt' m'cH fclicite. It is more than I expected. Well; circumstances have made it so that I must cither write or scrub. Scrubbing spoils one's hands, ar.Ji, besides, it isn't sufficiently remunera- tive. So I have come to ask you whether you seriously thought so, or whether it was only politeness — hlafiue, or what. I know it is horrible of me to insist like this, but you see I must." Her big dark eyes looked at him without a shadow of appeal, rather as if he were destiny and she were unafraid. "Oh, I meant it," he returned ponderingly. " You can often tell by the way people talk that they would write well. But there are many things to be considered, you know." "Oh, I know — whether one has any real right to write, anything to say that makes it worth while. I am afraid I can't find that I have. But there must be scullery-maid's work in literature — in journalism, isn't there? I could do that, I thought. After all, it's only one's own art that one need keep sacred." She added the last sentence a little defiantly. 38 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. But the correspondent of the Daily Dial was not thinking of that aspect of the matter. "It's not a thing you can jump into," he said shortly. " Have you written anything, anywhere, for the press before ? " " Only one or two things that have appeared in the local paper at home. They were more or less admired by the people there, so far as that goes." *' Were you paid for them ? " Elfrida shook her head. " I've often heard the editor say he paid for nothing but his telegrams," she said. " There it is, you see." "I want to write for Ila(f''>i's CJironicle,'' Elfrida said quickly. " You know the editor of Raffini, of course, Mr. Parke. You know everybody. Will you do me the very great favour to tell him that I will report society functions for him at one-half the price he is accustomed to pay for such writing, and do it more entertainingly ? " Frank Parke smiled. " You are courageous, indeed. Miss Elfrida. That is done by a woman who is invited everywhere in her proper person, and knows * tout Paris ' like her alphabet. I believe she holds stock in llaffmi; any way, they would double her pay rather than lose her. You would have more chance of ousting their leader- writer." *' I should be sorry to oust anybody," Elfrida returned \vith dignity. " How do you propose to help it, if you go in for doing better or cheaper what somebody else has been doi^ ,*; before ? " Miss Bell thought for a minute, and demon- strated her irresponsibility with a little shrug. ** Then I am very sorry," she said; "but, monsieur, you haven't told me what to do." A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 39 'id was not >," he said anywhere, ppeared in ) more or ar as that heard the ilegrams," M '> Elfrida liaffini, of )dy. Will him that t one-half h waiting, >urageoiis, a woman pr person, hahet. I way, they ber. You sir leader- )> Elfrida you go in body else [1 demon- brug. I; "but, 3." The illuminator of European politics for the Ihiili/ Dial wished heartily that it had been a matter of two or three hundred francs. "I'm afraid I — well, I don't see how I can give you any very definite advice. The situation doesn't admit of it. Miss Bell. But — have you given up Lucicn?" " No, it is only that — that I must earn money to pay him." " Oh ! Home sui^plies stopped ? " "My people have lost all their money except barely enough to live on. I can't expect another sou." " That's hard lines." "I'm awfully sorry for them. But it isn't enough being sorry, you know. I must do some- thing. I thought I might write for Baffin I for — for practice, you know; the articles they print arc really very bad, — and afterwards arrange to send Paris letters to some of the big American newspapers. I know a woman who does it. I assure you she is quite stupid, and she is paid — but enormously ! " Mr. Parke repressed his inclination to smile. "I believe that sort of thing over there is very much in the hands of the syndicates," he said ; " and they won't look at you unless you are known. I don't want to discourage you, Miss Bell, but it would take you at least a year to form a connection. You would have to learn Paris about five times as well as you fancy you know it already; and then you would require a special course of training to find out what to write about. And then, remember, you would have to compete with people who know every inch of the ground. Now, if I can be of any assistance to you en cainaradc, you know, in the matter of your passage home " 40 A DAUGIITEU OF TO-DAY. " Thanks," Elfrida interposf^d quickly, " I am not going home. If I cannot write I can scrub, as I said. I must find out." She put out her hand. " I am sure there are not many of those fifteen minutes left," she said, smiling and quite undismayed. *' I have to thank you very sincerely for — for sticking to the opinion you expressed when it v^as only a matter of theory. As soon as I justify it in practice I'll let you know." The correspondent of the Daily Dud hesitated, looked at his watch and hesitated again. '* There's plenty of time," he fibbed, frowning over the problem of what might be done. "Oh no," Elfrida said, *' you are very kind, but there can't be. You will be very late, and perhaps his Excellency will have given the audience to the devil instead — or to Monsieur de Pommitz." Her eyes expressed perfect indif- ference. Frank Parke laughed outright — de Pommitz was his rival for every political development-,, and shone dangerously in the telegraphic columns of the London World. " De Pommitz isn't in it this time," he said. " I'll tell you what I might do. Miss Elfrida. How long have you got for this — experiment ? " "Less than a week." "Well, go home and wrice me an article — something locally descriptive. Make it as bright as you can, and take a familiar subject. Let mo have it in three days, and I'll see if I can get it into Baffini for you. Of course you know I can't promise that they'll look at it." " You are very good," Elfrida returned hastily, seeing his real anxiety to be off. " Something locally descriptive ? I've often thought the atelier would make a good subject." " Capital — capital ! Only be very careful about A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 41 S " I am in scrub, ; out her of those md quite smcerely Bxpressccl s soon as icsitatcd, frowning ny kind, iate, and ven the Monsieur 3ct indif- mitz was -n*;, and umns of he said, la. How irticle — s bright Let me can get know I hastily, mething e ateher il about pcrsonahties and so forth. Ihtffini hates giving offence. Good-bye! Here, you *! cocher ! 13oule- vard Haussmann ! " CHAPTER y. John Kendal had only one theory that was not received with respect by the men at Lucien's. They quoted it as often as other things he said, but always in a spirit of derision, w^hile Kendal's ideas as a rule got themselves discussed seriously, now and then furiously. This young man had been working in the atelier for three years, with marked success almost from the beginning. The first thing he did had a character and an importance that brought Lucien himself to admit a degree of soundness in the young fellow's earlier training, which was equal to great praise. Since then he had found the line in the most interesting room in the Palais d'lndustrie, the Cours had twice medalled him, and Albert Wolff was beginning to talk about his coloration delicicuse. Also it was known that he had condescended for none of these things. His success in Paris added piquancy to his pre- posterous notion that an Englishman should go home and paint England and hang his work in the Academy, and made it even more unreason- able than if he had failed. " For me," remarked Andre Vambery, with a finely curled lip, *' I never see an English land- scape without thinking of what it would bring jxir hectare. It is trop arranr/e, that country, all laid out in a pattern of hedges and clumps, for the pleasure of the milords. And every milord 42 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. I has the taste of every other milord ! lie \Yill go home to perpetuate that ! " " Si, si, mais c'est pour sa patric." Nadie defended him. Women always did. *' 13ah ! " returned her lover, ** pour nous autrcs artistes la France c'est la patrie, et la France seulc ! Every day he is in England he will lose — lose — lose. Enfin, he will paint the portraits of the wives and daughters of Sir Brown and Sir Smith, and he will do it as Sir Brown and Sir Smith advise ! Avec son talent unique, distinctive ! Oh, jc suis a bout de patience ! " When Kendal's opinion materialized, and it became known that he meant to go back in February, and would send nothing to the Salon that year, the studio tore its hair and hugged its content, all but the master, who attempted to dissuade his pupil with literal tears, of which he did not seem in the least ashamed and which annoyed Kendal very much. In fact, it was a dramatic splash of Lucien's which happened to fall upon his coat-sleeve that decided Kendal finally about the impossibility of living always in Paris. He could not take life seriously where the emotions lent themselves so easily. And Kendal thought that he ought to take life seriously, because his natural tendency was otherwise. Kendal was an Englishman, with a temperament which multi- plied his individuality. If his father, who was once in the Indian Staff Corps, had lived, Kendal would probably have gone into the Indian Staff Corps too. And if his mother, who was of clerical stock, had not died about the same time, it is more than likely that she would have persuaded him to the Bar. With his parents, the obligation to be anything in particular seemed to Kendal to have been removed however, and he follow?'' his incHnation in the matter instead, which m. .e him A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 43 ! lie will did. lous autres la Franco will lose — portraits of n and Sir n and Sir listinctive ! d, and it back in the Salon liugged its empted to which ho ind which it was a opened to X Kendal always in where the id Kendal y, because mdal was ch multi- who was d, Kendal lian Staff )f clerical it is more ided him gation to al to have y^ ? ^ his a. .e him an artist. lie would have found life too interesting to conline his observation of it within the scope of any profession, but of course he could have chosen none which presents it with greater fascina- tion. To speak quite baldly about him, liis intelligence and his sympathies had a wider range than is represented by anyone power of expression, even the catholic brush. He had the analytical turn of the age, though it had been denied him to demonstrate what he saw except through an art which is sympathetic. With a more comprehensive conception of modern tendencies and a subtler descriptive vocabulary, Kendal might have divided his allegiance between Lucien and the magazines, and ended a light-handed fiction-maker of the more refined order of realists. As it was, he made his studies xor his own pleasure, and if the people he met ministered to him further than they knew, nothing came of it more than that. What he liked best to achieve was an intimate knowledge of his fellow-beings, from an outside point of view. Where intimate knowledge came of intimate association, he found that it usually compromised his independence of criticism, which in the Quartier Latin was a serious matter. So he rather cold- bloodedly aimed at keeping his own personality independent of his observation of other people's, and as a rule he succeeded. That Paris had neither made Kendal nor marred him, may be gathered for the first part from his contentment to go back to paint in his native land, for the second from the fact that he had a relation with Elfrida Bell which at no point verged toward the sentimental. He would have found it diflicult to explain in which direction it did verge ; in fact, he would have been very much surprised to know that he sustained any relation at all toward Miss Dell important enough to repay examination. |iiiiii| m 44 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. The rod-armed, white-capped proprietress of a cremerio had effected their introduction ])y rep;ret- ting to them jointly that she had only one helping of coitipote (h ccriacs left, and leaving them to arrange its consumption between them. And it is safer than it would he in most similar cases to say that neither Elfrida's heavy-lidded beauty nor the smile that gave its instant attraction to Kendal's delicately eager face had much to do with the establishment of their acquaintance, such as it was. Kendal, though his virtue was not of the heroic order, would have turned a contemptuous heel upon any imputation of the sort, and Elfrida would have stared it calmly out of countenance. To Elfrida it soon became a definite and agree- able fact that she and the flower of Lucien's had things to say to each other — things of the rare temperamental sort that say themselves seldom. AVithin a fortnight she had made a niche for him in that private place where she kept the images of those toward whom she sustained this peculiarly sacred obligation, and to meet him had become one of those pleasures which were in Sparta so notably unattainable. I cannot say that con- siderations w^iich, from the temperamental point of view, might be described as ulterior, had never suggested themselves to Miss Bell. She had thought of them, with a little smile, as a possible development on Kendal's part that might be amusing. And then she invariably checked the smile, and told herself that she would be sorry — very sorry. Instinctively she separated the artist and the man. For the artist she had an admira- tion none the less sincere for its exaggerations, and a sympathy which she thought the best of herself: for the man nothing, except the half- contemptuous reflection that he was probably as other men. A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 45 •OSS of a by rcpjrot- io helping them to And it : cases to eaiity nor fiction to ch to do ncc, such as not of omptuous d Elfrida nance, nd agree- ien's had the rare i seldom, i for him mages of •eculiarly I become Iparta so lat con- fcal point ad never 5he had possible light be 3ked the sorry — • tie artist admira- 3rations, best of be half- )ably as If Elfrida stamped herself less importantly upon the surface of Kendal's mind than he did upon hers, it may be easily enough accounted for by the multiplicity of images there before her. I do not mean to imply that all or many of these were feminine, but, as 1 have indicated, Kendal was more occupied with impressions of all sorts than is the habit of his fellow-countrymen, and at twcnty- cight he had managed to receive quite enough to make a certain seriousness necessary in a fresh one. There was no seriousness in his impression of Elfrida. If he had gone so far as to trace its lines he would have found them to indicate a more than slightly fantastic young woman, with an apprecia- tion of certain artistic verities out of all proportion to her power to attain them. But he had not gone so far. His encounters with her were among his casual amusements, and if the result was an occasional dinner together, or tlrst night at the Eolies Dramatiques, his only reflection was that a girl who could do such things and not be com- promised was rather pleasant to know, especially so clever a girl as Elfrida Bell. He did not re- cognize in his own mind the mingled beginnings of approval and disapproval which end in personal theory. He was quite unaware, for instance, that he liked the contemptuous way in which she held at arm's length the moral laxity of the Quartier, and disliked the cool cynicism with which she flashed upon them there the sort of .yV/t de mot that did not make him uncomfortable on the lips of a Frenchwoman. He understood that she had nursed Nadie Palicsky through three weeks of diphtheria, during which time Monsieur Vambery took up his residence in the next street, without any special throb of enthusiasm ; and he heard her quote Voltaire on the miracles — some of her 46 A nAL'GIlTRIl 01.' TO-DAY. (I ironies were a little old-fuHhionccl — without con- flcious disgust. lie was willing cnougli to meet her on the special plane she constituted for herself — not as a woman, hut as an artist and a Bohe- mian. But there wore others who made the same claim with whom it was an affectation or a policy, and Kendal granted it to Elfrida without any special conviction that she was more sincere than the rest. Besides, it is possible to grow indifferent oven to the unconventionalities, and Kendal had hcen three years in the (^)uartier Latin. :! ii CHAPTER VI. If Lucien had examined Miss Bell's work during the week of her experiment with Anglo-Parisian journalism, he would have ohserved that it grew gradually worse as the days went on. The devotion of the small hours to composition does not steady one's hand for the reproduction of the human muscles, or inform one's eye as to the correct manipulation of flesh tints. Besides, the model suffered in Elfrida's iiands from an unconscious diminution of enthusiasm. She was finding her first serious attempt at writing more ahsorbing than she would have believed possible, and she felt that she was doing it better than she expected. She was hardly aware of the moments that slipped by while she dabbled aimlessly in unconsidered colour, meditating a phrase, or leaned back and let nothing interfere with her consideration of the atelier with the other reproductive instinct. She did not recognize the deterioration in her work either, and at the very moment when Niidie Palicsky, observing Lucien's neglect of her, in- wardly called him a brute, Elfrida was planning A DAUCIIITKI! OV To-|)AY. 47 itliout con- [li to meet for herself nd a Bohc- 3 the samo n' a policy, itliout any ncerc than indifferent [endal had n'li during lo-Parisian at it grew le devotion not steady le human [lo correct ;ho model iconscious nding her ahsorbing and she expected, at slipped jonsidered back and on of the net. She her work en Nadie her, in- planning to leave the atelier an hour earlier for tlio sake of tlie more urgent thing which she had to do. She finished it in five days, and addressed it to Frank Parke with a new and uplifting sense of accomplishment. The ever- fresh miracle happened to her too, in that the working out of one article ])Cgot the possibilities of half a dozen more, and the next day saw her well into another. In posting the first she had a premonition of success. She saw it as it would infallibly appear in a conspicuous place in RitjjhiVH ClmuUic, and heard the people of the American Colony wondering who in the world could have written it. She conceived that it would fill about two columns and a half. On Saturday afternoon, when Kendal joined her crossing the courtyard of the atelier, she was preoccupied with the form of her rcbulY to any inquiries that might be made as to whether she had written it. They walked on together, talking casually of usual things. Kendal glancing c\ery now and then at the wet study Elfrida was carrying home, felt himself distinctly thankful that she did not ask his opinion of it, as she had to his embarrass- ment once or twice before, though it was so very bad that he was half disposed to abuse it without permission. Miss Bell seemed persistently interested in other things however, the theatres, ) the ecclesiastical bill before the Chamber of ( Deputies, the new ambassador, even the recent I improvement of the police system. Kendal found her almost tiresome. His half-interested replies interpreted themselves to her after a while, and she turned their talk upon trivialities, with a gay exhilaration ■which was not her frequent mood. She asked him to come up, when they arrived, with a frank cordiality which he probably thought of as the American way. He went up, at all 48 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. events, and for the twentieth time admired the dainty chic of the Uttle apartment, telling himself, also for the twentieth time, that it was extra- ordinary how agreeahle it was to he there, agreeable mill a distinctly local agrecableness, whether its owner happened to be also there or not. In this he was altogether sincere, and only properly dis- criminating. He spent fifteen minutes wondering at her whimsical interest, and, when she suddenly asked him if he really thought the race had outgrown its j)hysical conditions, he got up to go, declaring it was too bad, she must have been working up back numbers of the Nineteenth Century. At which she consented to turn their talk into its usual personal channel, and he sat down again content. *' Doesn't the Princess Bobaloff write a charming hand?" Elfrida said presently, tossing him a square white envelope. **It isn't hers, if it's an invitation. She has a wretched relation of a Frenchwo;aian living with her, who does all that. May I light a cigarette ? " " You know you may. It is an invitation, but I didn't accept." "Her soiree last night? If I'd known you had been asked, I should have missed you." ** I ought to tell you," Elfrida went on, colouring a little, **that I was invited through Leila Van Camp — that ridiculously rich girl, you know, they say Lucien is in love with. The Van Camp has been affecting me a good deal lately. She says my manners are so pleasing, and, besides, Lucien once told her she painted better than I did. The Princess is a great friend of hers." "Why didn't you go?" Kendal asked, without any appreciable show of curiosity. If he had been looking closely enough, he would have seen that she was waiting for his question. A DAUGHTER OF 'L'O-DAY. 49 mired the ig himself, kvas cxtra- , agreeable whether its t. In this 3perly dis- wondering B suddenly race had got up to have been Nineteenth turn their Lnd ho sat I cnarmmg nff him a She has a iving with igarette ? " tation, but 1 you had , colouring I>9ila Van mow, they Camp has She says es, Lucien did. Tho d, without ) had been seen that *' Oh, it lies somehow, that sort of thing, outside my idea of life. I have nothing to say to it, and it has nothing to say to me." Kendal smiled introspectivcly. He saw why ho had been shown the letter. ** And yet," ho said, "I venture to hope that if we had met there we mif^ht have had some little conversation." Elfrida leaned back in her chair, and threw up her head, locking her slender fingers over her knee. " Of course," she said, indifferently. ** I under- stand why you should go. You must. You have arrived at a point where the public claims a share of your personality. That's different." Kendal's face straightened out. He was too much of an Englishman to understand that a personally agreeable truth might not be flattery; and Elfrida never knew how far he resented her c ndour when it took the liberty of being gracious. "I went in the humble hope of getting a good supper, and seeing some interesting people," he told her. "Loti was there, and Madame Rives- Chanler, and Sargent." ** And the supper?" Miss Bell inquired, with a touch of sarcasm. ** Disappointing," he returned, seriously. **I should say bad — as bad as possible." She gave him an impatient glance. ** But those people — Loti and the rest — it is only a serio-comic game to them to go to the Princess Bobaloff's. They wouldn't if they could help it. They don't live then* real lives in such places — among such people ! " Kendal took the cigarette from his mouth and laughed. * Your Bohemianism is quite Arcadian in its quality — deliciously fresh," he declared. *' I think they do. Genius clings to respectability after a time. A most worthy and admirable lady, the Princess." 50 A DAL-.HTER OF TO-DAY. i it ■ift I Elfrida raised the arch of her eyebrows. " Much too worthy and admh'able," she declared; and talked of something else, leaving Kendal rasped, as she sometimes did, without being in any degree aware of it. ** How preposterous it is ! " he said, moved by his irritation to find something preposterous, "that girls like Miss Van Camp should come here to work." " They can't help being rich. It shows at least the germ of a desire to work out their own salvation. I think I like it." **It shows the germ of an affectation in rather an advanced stage of development. I give her three months more to tire of snubbing Lucicn, and distributing caramels to the less fortunate young ladies of the studio. Then she will pick up those pitiful attempts of hers, and take them to New York, and spend a whole season in glorious apolo|_ v for them." Elfrida looked at him steadily for an instant. Then she laughed lightly. ''Thanks," she said, *'I see 5'ou had not forgotten my telling you that Lucien said she painted better than I did." Kendal wondered whether he had really meant to go so far. "I am sorry," he said, "but I am afraid I had not forgotten it." "Well, you w^ould not say it out of ill-nature. You must have w^anted me to know — what you thought." "1 think," he said gravely, "that I did — at all events that I do — want you to know. It seems a pity that you should work on here — mistakenly — when there are other things that you could do so well." " Other things have been mentioned to me before," she returned, with a strain in her voice that she tried to banish. " ^lay I ask what particular thing occurs to you?" A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. " Much •ed ; and ,1 rasped, ny degree red by his 'thatghls work." s at least salvation. in rather give her iicien, and ate young k up those m to New us apolo^^' .n instant, she said, T you that I." illy meant " but I am ill-nature, -what you did — at all It seems a stakenly — ould do so led to mc her voice ask what He was already remorseful. After all, what business of his was it to interfere, especially when he knew that she attached such absurd importance to liis opinion ? "I hardly know," he said, "but there must be something. I am convinced that there is something." Elfrida put her elbows on a little tabic, and shadowed her face with her hands. **I wish I could understand," she said, "why I should be so willing to — to go on at any sacrifice if there is no hope in the end." Kendal's mood of grim frankness overcame liim again. "I believe I know," ho said, watching her. ller hands dropped from her face, and sho turned it towards him mutely. "It is not achievement you want, but success. That is why," said he. There was silence for a moment, broken by light footsteps on the stair and a knock. " My good friends," cried Mademoiselle Palicsky from tho doorway, "have you been quarrelling?" She made a little dramatic gesture to match her words, which brought out every line of a black velvet and white corduroy dress which would have been a horror upon an Englishwoman. Upon Ntldie Palicsky it was simply an admiration point of the kind never seen out of Paris, and its effect was instantaneous. Kendal acknowledged it with a bow of exaggerated deference. *' Ccst parfaitl'' he said with humility, and lifted a pile of newspapers off' tho nearest chair lor her. Nadie stood still, pouting. " Monsieur is amused," she said, "monsieur is always amused. 13ut I have that to tell which monsieur will graciously take (iH (jrand serieu.v." 52 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. *' What is it, Nildie?" Elfrida asked, with some- thing like dread in her voice. Nadie's air was so important, so rejoiceful. " Ecoutez, done! I am to send two pictures to the Salon. Carohis Duran has already seen my sketch for one, and he says there is not a doubt, not a doubt, that it will be considered! Your congratulations, both of you, or your hearts' blood ! For on my word of honour I did not expect it this year." "A thousand and one!" cried Kendal, trying not to see Elfrida's face. "But if you did not expect it this year, mademoiselle, you were the only one who had so little knowledge of affairs," he added gailj^ ** And now," Nadie cried, as if he had interrupted her, *' I am going to drive in the Bois to sec what it will be like when the people in the best carriages turn and say, 'That is Mademoiselle Nadie Palicsky, whose picture has just been bought for the Luxembourg.* " She paused and looked for a curious instant at Elfrida, and then w^ent quickly up behind her chair. " Emhrasse'Vioif clicrict^^ she said, bringing her face with a bird-like motion close to the other girl. Kendal saw an instinctive momentary aversion in the backward start of Elfrida*s head, and from the bottom of his heart he was sorry for her. She pushed her friend away almost violently. " No ! " she said, ** no ! I am sorry, but it is too childish. We never kiss each other, you and I ! And listen, Nadie ! I am delighted for you, but I have a sick headache — la migraine, you understand. And you must go away, both of you— both of you ! " Her voice raised itself in the last few words to an almost hysterical imperativeness. A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 53 ritli somc- ir was BO licturcs to r seen my it a doubt, 3d ! Your rts' blood ! expect it ial, trying >u did not L were the of affairs," interruiDted 3ois to see in the best ademoisellc ^een bought instant at d her chair, ringing her the other .ry aversion d, and from r her. She but it is too you and I ! you, but I understand, u— both of 3W words to As they went down the stairs together Made- moiselle Palicsky remarked to Mi*. John Kendal, repentant of the good that he had done — "So she has consulted her oracle, and it hns barked out the truth. Let us hope she will not throw herself into the Seine ! " ** Oh no ! " Kendal replied. " She is horridly hurt, but I am glad to believe that she hasn't the capacity for tragedy. Somebody," ho added gloomily, ** ought to have told her long ago." Half an hour later the postman brought Elfrida a letter from Mr. Frank Parke, and a packet con- taining her manuscript. It was a long letter, very kind and appreciative of the article, which Mr. Parke called bright and gossipy, and, if any- thing, too cleverly unconventional in tone. He did not take the trouble to criticize it seriously, and left Elfrida under the impression that, from his point of view, at least, it had no faults. Mr. Parke had offered the article to Baffin i, but while they might have printed it, upon his recommenda- tion, it appeared that even his recommendation could not induce tliem to promise to pay for it. And it was a theory with him that what was worth printing was invariably worth paying for, so lio returned the manuscript to it^ author in the sincere hope that it might yet meet its deserts. He had been thinking over the talk they had had together, and he saw more plainly than ever the hopelessness of her getting a journalistic start in Paris, however ; he would distinctly advise her to try London instead. There were a number of ladies' papers published in London — he regretted that he did not know the editors of any of them — and amongst them, with her freshness of style, she would be sure to find an opening. Mr. Parke added the address of a lodging-house off Fleet Street where Elfrida would Ill IM 54 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. bo in the thick of it, and the fact that he was leaving Paris for three months or so. Ho hoped she would write to him when he came back. It was a letter precisely calculated to draw an unso- phisticated amateur mind away from any other mortification, to pour balm upon any unrelated wound. Elfrida felt herself armed by it to face a sea of troubles. Not absolutely, but almost, she convinced herself on the spot that her solemn choice of an art had been immature and to some extent groundless and unwarrantable ; and she washed all her brushes with a mechanical and melancholy sense that it was for the last time. It was easier than she would have dreamed for her to decide to take Frank Parke's advice and p;o to London. The life of the Quartier had already vaguely lost in charm since she knew that she must be irredeemably a failure in the atelier, though she told herself, with a liOu tear or two, that no one loved it better, more comprehendingly, than she did. Her impulse was to begin packing at once, but she put that off until the next day, and wrote two or three letters instead. One was to John Kendal. This is the whole of it. (< Please believe me very grateful for your frank- ness this afternoon. I have been most curiously blind. But I agree with you that there is some- thing else, and I am going away to find it out and to do it. When I succeed, I will let you know ; but you shall not tell me that I have failed again. "Elfrida Bell." The other was addressed to her mother, and when it reached Mr. and Mrs. Bell in Sparta, they said it was certainly sympathetic and very well written. This was to disarm one another's mind A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. DO it he was Ho hoped back. It an iinso- any other iinrehitcd b to face a most, she Bi' solemn d to some and she inical and last time, led for her and fio to id already that she le atelier, Lir or two, tiendingly, n packing next day, One was our frank- curiously 3 is some- it out and 'ou know ; ave failed Bell." 3ther, and )arta, they very well ler's mind of the suspicion that its closing paragraph was doubtfully daughterly. " In view of what are now your very limited resources, I am sure, dear mother, you will under- stand my unwillingness to make an additional drain upon them, as I should do if I followed your wishes and came home. I am convinced of my ability to support myself, and I am not coming home. To avoid giving you the pain of repeating your request, and the possibility of your sending me money which you cannot afford to spare, I have decided not to let you know my whereabouts until I can write to you that I am in an independent position. I will only say tliat I am leaving Paris, and no letters sent to this address will be forwarded. I sincerely hope you will not allow yourself to be in any way anxious about me, for I assure you that there is not the slightest need. With much love to papa and yourself, " Always your affectionate daughter, " Elfrida. *'P.S. — I hope your asthma has again suc- cumbed to Dr. Paley." CHAPTER VII. There was a scraping and a stumbling sound in the second-floor front bedroom of Mrs. Jordan's lodj^ings, in a by-way of Fleet Street, at two o'clock in the morning. It came up to Elfrida, mixed with the rattle of a departing cab over the paving-stones below, outside, wherj the fog was 56 A DAUanTER OF TO-DAY. lifting and showinf]r one street lamp to another. Elfricla, in her attic, had been sitting above the fog all night ; her single candle had not been obscured by it. The cab had been paid and the andirons were being disturbed by Mr. Golightly Ticke, returned from the Criterion restaurant, where he had been supping with the leading lady of the Sparkle Company, at the leading lady's expense. She could afford it better than he could, she told him ; and that was extremely true, for Mr. Ticke had his capacities for light comedy still largely to prove, while Mademoiselle Phyllis Fane had ah .ost disestablished herself upon the stage, so Ion and so prosperously she had pirouetted there. Mr. Golightly Ticke' s case excited a degree of the large compassion which Mademoiselle Phyllis had for incipient genius of the interesting sex, and which served her instead of virtue of the more ordinary sort. He had a double claim upon it, because in addition to being tall and fair and misunderstood by most people, with a thin nose that went beautifully with a mediaival costume, he was such a gentleman. Phyllis loosened her purse-strings instinctively, with genuine gratifica- tion, whenever this young man approached. She believed in him ; he had ideas, she said, and she gave him more : in the end he would be sure to "catch on." Through the invariable period of obscurity which comes before the appearance of any star, she was in the habit of stating that he would have no truer friend than Filly Fane. She spoke to the manager, she pointed out Mr. Ticke's little parts to the more intimate of her friends of the press. She sent him delicate little presents of expensive cigars, scents, and soaps ; she told him often that he w^ould infallibly ** get there." The fact of his having paid his own cab- fare from the Criterion on this particular morning, A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 57 ) another, above the not been d and the Goligbtly estaurant, iding lady ing lady's . he could, r true, for medy still yllis Fane the stage, pirouetted i a degree iemoiselle nteresting tue of the laim upon . fair and thin nose costume, 5ened her gratifica- led. She and she sure to period of larance of that he le. I out Mr. te of her jate little d soaps ; bly - get own cab- morning, gave him, as he found his way upstairs, almost an injured feeling of independence. As the sounds defined themselves more distinctly troublous and uncertain, Elfrida laid down her pen and listened. ''What an absurd boy it is! " she spmI. "ITc's trying to go to bed in the fire-place." As a matter of fact, Mr. Ticke's stage of intoxi- cation was not nearly so advanced as that ; but Elfrida's mood was borrowed from her article, and she felt the necessity of putting it graphically. Besides, a picturesque form of stating his condition was almost due to Mr. Ticke. Mr. Tickc lived \ the unfettered life, he was of the elect. Elfrida reflected, as Mr. Ticke went impulsively to rest, how easy it was to discover the elect. A glance would do it, a word, the turning of an eyelid, i She knew it of Golightly Ticke days before he came 1 up, in an old velvet coat and without a shirt collar, to borrow a sheet of notepaper and an envelope from her. On that occasion Mr. Ticke had half apologized for his appearance, saying, " I'm afraid I'm rather a Bohemian," in his sympathetic voice. To which Elfrida had responded, handing him the notepaper, "Afraid!" and the understanding was established at once. Elfrida did not consider Mr. Ticke's other qualifications or disqualifications — that would have been a bourgeois thing to do. He was a hellc dmc, that was sutiicient. He might find life difficult, it was natural and probable. She, Elfrida Bell, found it ditficult. She had not succeeded yet, neither had he, therefore they had a comradeship — they and a few others — of revolt against the dull conventional British public that barred the way to success. Yesterday, she had met him at the street door, and he had stopped to remark that along the Embankment, nature was making a bad copy of one of Vereschagin's pictures. f^ I I 5<^ A DAUGIITKU iW TO-DAY. When people could say thin.c^s like that, noth'iis else matturcd much. It is impossiblo to tell ^vhethe^ Miss licll would have found rooui in this philosophy for the godmoUierly bcnevoknco of Mademoiselle Fane, if she had known of it, or not. It wns a low-roofed room in which Elfiida r»
r/////// / " She felt her face grow 1 lot tor as she said it, and instinctively she lowered her voice. Her vanity was pricked as with a sword; for a moment she suffered keenly. Iler fabric of hope underwent a horrible collapse ; the blow was at its very foundation. While the minute- hand of her mother's old-fashioned gold watch travelled to its next point, or for nearly as long as that, Elfrida was under the impression that a person who spelled "artificially" with one "1" could never succeed in literature. She believed she had counted the possibilities of failure. She had thought of style, she had thought of sense — she had never thought of spelling ! She began with a penknife to make the word right, and almost fearfully let herself read the first few lines. " There are no more," she said to herself with a sigh of relief. Turning the page, she read on, and the irritation began to fade out of her face. She turned another page, and another, and her eyes grew interested, absorbed, enthusiastic. There were some more, one or two, but she did not see them. Her house of hope built itself again. "A mere slip ! " she said, r-^assured; and then, as her eye fell on a little fat dictionary that held down a pile of papers, ** but I'll go over them all in the morning, to make sure, with that.*' Then she turned with new pleasure to the finished work of the night, settled the sheets together, put them in an envelope and addressed it— The Editor, The Consul, 6, Tibhi/s Lane, Fleet Street, E.G. 62 A DAUGHTEP OF TO-DAY. ^ She hesitated before she wrote — should she write "The Editor" only, or '* George Alfred Curtis, Esq.," first, whioli would attract his attention perhaps, as comiiig from somebody who knew his name? She had a right to know his name, sho told herself; she had met him once in the happy Paris days. Kendal had introduced him to her, in brief encounters at the Salon, and she re- membered with amusement the appreciativeness of the glance that accompanied the stout middle- aged English gentleman's bow. Kendal had told her then that Mr. Curtis was the editor of the (%>nHi{L Yes, she had a riglit to know his name. And it might make the faintest shadow of a difi'er- enec. IJut no, *' The Editor " was more dignified, more impersonal ; her article siiould go in upon its own merits, absolutely upon its own merits ; and so she wrote. It was nearly three o'clock, and cold, shivering cold. Mr. Golightly Ticke had wholly subsided. The fog had climbed up to her, and the candle snowed it clinging to the corners of the room. The water in the samovar was hissing ; Elfrida warmed her hands upon the cylinder, and made herself some tea. Vv'ith it she disposed of a great many sweet biscuits from the biscuit-box, and thereafter lighted a cigarette. As she smoked she re-road an old letter, a long letter in a flowing foreign hand, written from among the haymakers at Jiarbizon, that exhaled a delicate perfume. Elfrid:i had read it thrice for comfort in the afternoon, now she tasted it, sipping here and there with long enjoyment of its delieiousness. She kissed it as she folded it up, with the silent thought that this was tiie bread of her life, and soon — oh, passably soon — she could bear the genius in Niidie's eyes again. Then she went to bed. ''You little brute," she A DAUGUTEIt OF TO-DAY. slic write (1 Curtis, attention knew bis lame, slio he happy n to her, [ .she re- iativcnesa it middle- had told jv of the lis name, f a dilTer- dignilied, in upon 1 merits ; shivering subsided, le candle lie room. Elfrida nd made f a great Uox, and oked she flowing L3'makers perfume. in the lere and iousness. lie silent life, and )ear the Lite," she Raid to Buddha, who still smiled, as she blow out the candle, ** can't you forget it ? " CIIArTER VIII. ^Iiss Bell arose late the next morning, whicli was not unusual. Mrs. Jordan had knocked throe times vainly, and then left the young lady's chop and coffee outside the door, on the landing. If she u'iiiild 'avc it cold, Mrs. Jordan reasoned, slu' would, and more warnin' than knockin' three times no livin' bean could expect. Mrs. Jordan went downstairs uneasy in her mind, however. The matter of ^liss Bell's breakfast generally left her uneasy in her mind. It was not in reason, ^Irs. Jordan thought, that "a young littery lady should keep that close;" for Elfrida's custom of having her breakfast deposited outside her door was as invariable as it was jierplexing. Miss Bell was as charming to her landlady as she was to everybody else, but Mrs. Jordan found a polite pleasantness that permitted no opportunity for expansion whatever, more stimulating to the curiosity and irritating to the mind generally than the worst of bad manners would have been. That was the reason she knocked three times when she brought up Miss Bell's breakfast. At Mr. Ticke's door she rapped once, and cursorily at that. Mr. Tieko was as conversational as you please on all occasions; .'uid besides, ^[r. Ticke's door was usually half open. The shroud of mystery in which Mrs. Jordan enwrapi)ed her *' third lloor front" grew more impenetrable as the days went by. Her original theory, which established l^lfrida as the heroine of the latest notorious divorce case, was admirably ingenious, but collapsed in a 64 A DAUGUTEU OF TO-DAY. fortnight Avitli its own weight. "Besides," Mrs. Jordan reasoned, *' if it 'ad been that person, ware is the corrispondent all this time ? There's l,«een notliin* in the shape of a corrispondent liangin' round ihis house, for I've kep' my eye open for one. I give 'er up," said Mrs. Jordan darkly, "that's wot I do, an' I only 'ope I won't lind 'er suicided on charcoal some mornin', like that pore yomig poe 'ss in yesterday's paper." Another knock, ha J' an hour later, found Elfrida fniishing her coffee. Out of doors the world was grey, the little square windows were beaten with rain. Inside, the dreariness was redeemed to the extent of a breath, a suggestion. An essence came out of the pictures and the trappings and blended itself with the lingering fragrance of the joss sticks and the roses and the cigarettes in a delightful manner. The room was almost warm with it. It seemed to centre in Elfrida; as she sat beside the writing-table, whose tumultuous papers had been pushed away to make room for the breakfast dishes, she was instinct with it. Miss Bell glanced hurriedly around the room. It was unimpeachable ; not so much as a strayed collar interfered with its character as an apart- ment where a young lady might receive. " Come in," she said. She knew the knock. The door opened slowly to a hesitating push, and disclosed Mr. Golightly Ticko by degrees. Mr. Ticke was accustomed to boudoirs less rigid in their exclusiveness, and always handled Miss Bell's door with a certain amout of embarrass- ment. If she wanted a chance to whisk anything out of the way, he would give her that chance. Fully in view of the lady and the coffee-pot, Mr. Ticke made a stage bow. " Here is my apology," he said, holding oat a letter. " I found it in the box as 1 came in." i A llAUOm'F.n OP TO-PAY. 6s cs," Mrs. ,t person, There's ispouclent i' my eye s. Jordan )G I won't inin', like Lpcr." ad Elfrida world was laten with led to the n essence pings and Qce of the ■ettcs in a lost warm a ; as she amultuous ) room for th it. the room, a strayed an apart- , '* Como ing push, degrees, less rigid died Miss mbarrass- anything it chance, coffee-pot. ing oat a in." It WMs another long thick ( iivclopo, and in iN nppcr kft-hand corner was printed, in Early English lettering, ''The St. George's Gazotte."" Elfrida took it with the faintest pcrceptihlc change of countenance. It was another discomliture, hut it did not prevent her from opening her dark eyes with a remote cfYoct of pathos entirely disconnected with its reception. "And you climbed all these fliglits to give it to me ! " she said with gravely smiling plaintive- ness. " Tliank you. Why should you have been so good ? Please — please sit down." Mr. Ticke looked at her expressivel}'. " I don't know, Miss Bell, really. I don't usually take much trouble for people. I say it witliout shame. Most people arc not worth it. You don't mind my saying that you're an exception, though. Besides, I'm afraid I had my eye on my reward." *' Your reward ? " Elfrida repeated. Her smiling comprehension insisted that it did not understand. ** The pleasure of saying good morning to you. But that is an inanity, Miss Bell, and unworthy of me. I should have left you to divine it." " How could I divine an inanity in connection with you?" she answered; and her e3'es under- lined her words. When he returned, " Oh, you always parry ! " she felt a little thrill of pleasure with herself. *' How did it go — last night*? "she asked. " Altogether lovely. Standing room only, and the boxes taken for a week. I lind myself quite adorable in my little part now. I Jcnlied sweetly, ignor- ing his questions. " I like pipes, and cobwebs, and old coats hanging on a nail, and plenty of litter and dust ancl confusion. It's much better for work than tapestries, and old armour, and wood carvings." Miss Bell did not open her little black note-book to record these things, however. Instead, she picked up a number of the London MagazinCy and looked at the title of an article pencil-marked on the pale green cover. It was tJanet Cardiff's article, and Lady Halifax had marked it. Elfrida had read it before — it was a fanciful creation of the conditions of verse-making when Herrick wrote, very pleasurably ironical in its bearing upon more modern poetry-making. It had quite deserved the praise she gave it in the corner which the Age reserved for the magazines. "I want you to understand," she said slowly, "that it is only a way. I shall not be content to stick at this — ordinary kind of journalistic work. I shall aim at something better — something perhaps as good as that." She held up the marked article. " I wonder if she realizes how fortunate she is — to appear between the same covers as Swinburne ! " " It is not fortune altogether," Kendal answered. " She works hard." "Do you know her? — do you see her often? Will you tell her that there is somebody who takes a special delight in every word she writes ? " asked 94 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. I ; I I Elfridii, impulsively. " But no, of course not ! Why should she care ? She must hear such things so often. Tell me, though, what is she like, and particularly how old is she ? " Kendal had begun to paint again; it was a compliment he was able to pay only to a very few people. ** I shall certainly repeat it to her," he said. ** She can't hear such things often enough — nobody can. How shall I toll you what she is like ? She is tall — about as tall as you are ; and rather thin. She has a good colour, and nice hair and eyes." " What coloured eyes ? " ** Brown, I think. No — I don't know ; but not blue. And good eyebrows — particularly good eye- brows." " She must be plain," Elfrida thought, '* if ho has to dwell upon her eyebrows. And how old? " she asked again. " Much over thirty ? " " Oh dear no ! not thirty. Twenty-four, I should say." Elfrida's face fell perceptibly. " Twenty-four ! " she exclaimed. " And I am already twenty. I shall never catch up to her in four years. Oh, you have made me so unhappy! I thought she must be quite old — forty perhaps. I was prepared to venerate her. But twenty-four, and good eye- brows ! It's too much." Kendal laughed. *' Oh, I say!" he exclaimed, jumping up, and bringing a journal from the other side of the room, "if you're going in for art criticism, here's something ! Do you see the Decade ? The Decade's article on the pictures in last week's number fairly brought me back to town." He held his brush between his teeth and found the i)lace for her. ** There ! 1 don't know who did it ; and it was the first thing Miss Cardiff asked me when I put in my appearance there A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 95 ourso not! such things iO like, and ; it was a to a very it to her," lings often 11 you what [IS you are ; u', and nice w; but not y good eyc- ?ht, " if ho how old?" ity-four, I nty-four ! " twenty. I ears. Oh, lought she s prepared good eye- exclaimed, 1 the other in for art see the }ictures in back to teeth and on't know iss Cardiff nee there yesterday, so she doesn't either, though she writes a good deal for the Decade.*' Kendal had gone back to work, and did not see that Elfrida was making an effort of self-control, with a curious exaltation in her eyes. ** I — I have seen this," she said presently. *' Capital, isn't it ? " " Miss Cardiff asked you who wrote it ? " she rc2)cated, hungrily. ** Yes, she commissioned me to find out, and, if he was respectable, to bring him there. Iler father said I was to bring him, anyway. So I don't propose to find out. The Cardiffs have bm*nt their fingers once or twice already handling obscure genius, and I won't take the responsibility, liut it's adorably savage, isn't it ? " "Do you really like it?" she asked. It was her first taste of success, and the savour was very sweet. But she was in an agony of desire to tell him, to tell him immediately, but gracefully, delicately, that she wrote it. How could she say it, and yet seem uneager, indifferent ! But the occasion must not slip ! It was a miserable mojuent. " Immensely," he replied. "Then," she said, with just a little more signi- ficance in her voice than she intended, "you would rather not find out ? " He turned and met her shining eyes. She smiled, and he had an instant of conviction. " You ! " he exclaimed, — " you did it ! Really ? " She nodded, and he swiftly reflected upon what be had said. "Please criticize," she begged im- patiently. "I can only advise you to follow your own example," he said gravely. "It's rather exuber- antly cruel in places." " Adorably savage, you said/ " 96 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. " I wasn't criticizing then. And I suppose," ho went on, with a shade of awkwardness, ** I ought to thank you for ail the charming things you put in about me." ** Ah," she returned, with a contemptuous pout and shrug, "don't say that ! — it's like the others. Jkit" — she clinched it notwithstanding, and rather quickly — "will you take me to see Miss Cardiff? I mean," she added, noting his look of consterna- tion, " will you ask her if I may come? I forget — we are in London." At this moment the boy from below stairs knocked with tea and cakes, little Italian cakes in iced jackets and paper boats. " Yes, certainly ; yes, I will," said Kendal, staring at the tray, and trying to remember when he had ordered it ; " but it's your plain duty to make us both some tea, and cat as many of these pink and white things as you possibly can. They seem to have come down from heaven for you." They ate and di'ank and talked, and were merry for quite twenty minutes. Elfrida opened her note-book, and threatened absurdities of detail for publication in the Age, He defied her, tilted his chair back, put his feet on a packing-box, and smoked a cigarette. He placed all the studies he had made after she left Paris before her, and as she finished the last but one of the Italian cakes they discussed these in the few words from which they both drew such large and satisfying meanings as do not lie at all in the vocabulary of outsiders. Elfrida felt the keenest pleasure of her whole life in the knowledge that Kendal was talking to her more seriously, more carefully, because of that piece of work in the Decade ; the consciousness of it was like wine to her, freeing her thoughts and her lips. Kendal felt, too, that the plane of their relations was somehow altered. He was not sure I A DAUGHTER OF TO DAY. 97 u iposc,' ho "I ought ;3 you put uous pout ho others, and rather s Cardiff? consterna- > I forget low stairs lian cakes certainly ; I tray, and iit; "but le tea, and ngs as you down from vere merry pened her I detail for , tilted his g-box, and studies he er, and as blian cakes rom which meanings outsiders. whole life dng to her se of that iousness of ►ughts and le of their ,s not sure that ho liked the alteration. Already nho had grown less amusing, and the real tamanKhrir which she constantly suggested her desire for, ho could not, at the bottom of his heart, truly tolerate with a woman. lie was an artist, but he was also an Englishman, and he told hitnsclf that he must not let her get into the way of coming there. lie fult an absurd inward irritation, which he did not analyze, that she should talk so well and be so charming, personally, at the same time. Elfridaj, still in the flush of her elation, was putting on her gloves to go, when the room re- sounded to a masterful double rap. The door almost simultaneously opened far enough to dis- close a substantial gloved hand upon the outer handle, and in the tones of coniident aggression which liabit has given to many middle-aged ladies, a feminine voice said, " May we come in ? " It is not probable tbat Lady Halifax had ever been so silently, surely, and swiftly damned before. In the fraction of an instant that followed, Kendal glanced at the dismantled tray, and felt that the situation was atrocious. He had just time to put his foot upon his half-smoked cigarette, and to force pretence of unconcern into his '* Come in ! " when the lady and her daughter entered with something of unceremoniousness. ''Those are appalling stairs" — Lady Halifax observed Elfrida, and came to an instant's aston- ished halt — "of yours, Mr. Kendal, — appalling! " Then, as Kendal shook hands with Miss Halifax, she faced round upon him in a manner which said definitely, " Explain ! " and behind her sharp, good-natured little eyes, Kendal read, "if it is possible." He looked at Elfrida in the silent hope that she would go, but she appeared to have no such intention. He was pushed to a momentary wish that she had got into the cupboard, which 9S A DAUCillTEU OF TO-I)AV. ho (liHiiiissed, turniiif]f a (Icepcr brick colour as it came and wont. KUriila was looldn;,' up with cahu inquiry, buttoninf^ a last f^lovc button. " Lady Halifax," he Haid, Kooing nothinf; else for it, " this is ^liss IJoll, from America, a foUow- studcnt in Paris. Miss Boll has deserted art for literature, though," ho went on bravely, noting an immediate change in his visitor's exi)rcssion, and the fact that her acknowledgment was quite as polite as was nccossar}'. " She has done me the honour to look me up this afternoon in the formid- able character of a representative of the press." Lady Halifax looked as if the explanation were quite acceptable, though she reserved the right of criticism. Elfrida took the first word, smiling prettily straight into Lady Halifax's face. ** Mr. Kendal pretends to be very much fright- ened," she said, with pleasant modest coolness, and looked at Kendal. " From America," Lady Halifax repeated, as if for the comfort of the assurance. ** I am sure it is a great advantage nowadays to have boon brought up in America." This was quite as delicately as Lady Halifax could i)ossibly manage to inform Kendal that she understood the situation. Miss Halifax was looking absorbedly at Elfrida. "Arc you really a journalist?" Miss Halifax asked. '*How nice! I didn't know there were any ladies on the London press except, of course, the fashion papers ; but that isn't quite the same, is it ? " When Miss Halifax said, " How nice ! '* it indi- cated a strong degree of interest. The threads of Miss Halifax's imagination were perpetually twist- ing themselves about incidents that had the least unusualness, and here was a most unusual inci- dent, with beauty and genius thrown in. Whether A DAUGIITKR OP TO-DAV. 99 iloiir iis it with calm nf^ else for a t'ellow- cd art for notinpj an Hsioii, and } quite as 10 me the lie formid- lU'OSS." ation were lie right of 1, smiling ich fright- coolness, ated, as if m sure it lave been quite as y manage tood the it Elfrida. Halifax here were of course, the same, " it indi- threads of illy twist- the least sual inci- Whether i she could approve of it or not in connection with Kendal, Miss Halifax would decide afterwards. She * ' ' Vierself that she ought to he sulliciently devoted ;0 Kendal to he magnanimous about his friends. Her six years of seniority gave her the candour to confess that she was devoted to Kendal — to his artistic personality, that is, and to his pictures. While Kendal turned a still uncomfort- able back upon them, showing Lady Halifax what he had done since she had been tiiere last — she was always pitiless in her demands for results — Klfrida talked a little about **tlie press" to Miss Halifax. Very lightly and gra'iefully she talked about it, so lightly and gracefully that Miss Halifax obtained an impression, which she has never lost, that journalism for a woman had ideal attractions, and privately resolved, if ever she were thrown upon the bleak world, to take it up. As the others turned towards them again, Elfrida noticed the conscience-stricken glance which Kendal gave to the tea-tray. " Oh," she said, with a slight enhancement of her pretty Parisian gurgle, *' I am very guilty — you must allow me to say that I am very guilty indeed ! Mr. Kendal did not expect to see me to-day, and in his surprise he permitted me to eat up all the cakes ! I am so sorry ! Are there no more — an}^- where ? " she asked Kendal, with such a gay pretence of tragic grief that they all laughed together. She went away then, and while they waited for a fresh supply of tea, Kendal did his best to satisfy the curiosity of the Halifaxes about her. He was so more than thankful that she had convinced them that she was a person about whom it was proper to be curious. 100 A MUGHl^ER OP TO-DAY. CHAPTER XII. It was Arthur Rattray who generally did the art criticism for the Decade, and when a temporary indisposition interfered between Mr. Rattray and his duty, early in May, he had acquired so much respect for Elfrida's opinion in artistic matters, and so much good-will toward her personally, that he wrote and asked her to undertake it for him with considerable pleasure. This respect and regard had dawned upon him gradually, from various sources, in spite of the fact that the Latin Quarter article had not been a particular success. That, to do Miss Bell justice, as Mr. RaHray said in mentioning the matter to the editor-in-chief, was not so much the fault of the article as the fault of their public. Miss Bell wrote the graphic, naked truth about the Latin Quarter. Even after Rattray had sent her copy back to be amended for the third time, she did not seem able to realize that their public wouldn't stand unions lihres when not served up with a moral purpose — that no artistic apology for them would do. In the end therefore, Rattray was obliged to mutilate the article himself and to neutralize it here and there. He was justified in taking the trouble, for it was matter they wanted on account of some expensive drawings of the locality that had been in hand a long time. Even then the editor-in-chief had grumbled at its " tone," though the wrath of the editor-in-chief was nothing to Miss Bell's. Mr. Rattray could not remember ever having had before a conversation with a contributor which approached in liveliness or interest the one he sustained with Miss Bell the day after her copy appeared. If he imparted some ideas upon expe- diency he received some obligation to artistic truth, A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. lOI d the art temporary ttray and I so much matters, lally, that t for him ipect and illy, from the Latin ir success. ,(:tray said r-in-chief, jle as the e graphic, ilven after ended for to realize bres when —that no a the end tilate the xnd there, for it was expensive L in hand chief had ith of the il's. Mr. jving had or which e one he her copy pon expe- stic truth, which he henceforth associated with Elfrida's expressive eyes and what he called her foreign accent. On the whole, therefore, the conver- sation was agreeahle, and it left him with the impression that Miss Bell, under proper guidance, could very possibly do some fresh, unconventional work for the Ar/r, Freshness and unconventionality for the Age was what Mr. Rattray sought as they seek the jewel in the serpent's head in the far East. He talked to the editor-in-chief about it, mentioning the increasing lot of things concerning women that had to be touched, which only a woman could treat **from the inside; " and the editor-in- chief agreed sulkily, because experience told him it was best to agree with Mr. Eattray, that Miss Bell should be taken on the staff on trial, at two pounds a week. " But the paper doesn't want a female Zola," he growled, "you can tell her that.'* Rattray did not tell her precisely that, but he explained the situation so that she quite under- stood it, the next afternoon when he called to talk the matter over with her. He could not ask her to come to the office to discuss it, he said ; they were so full up, they had really no place to receive a lady. And he apologized for his hat, which was not a silk one, in the uncertain way of a man who has heard of the proprieties in these things. She made him tea with her samovar, and she talked to him about Parisian journalism and the Parisian stage, in a way that made her a further discovery lo him ; and his mind, hitherto wholly devoted to the service of the Illustrated Age, received an im- petus in a new direction. When he had gone Elfrida laughed a little, silently, thinking first of this, for it was quite plain to her. Then, contrasting what the Age wanted her to write with her ideal of journalistic literature, she stated to Buddha that it was "worse than i' 102 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. !l jKuiade.^' ** But it means two pounds a week, Buddha," she said — " fifty francs ! Do you under- stand that? It means that we shall be able to stay here, in the world — that I shall n 4 be oblipjed to take you to Sparta. You don't know, Buddhn, how you would loathe Sparta ! But understand, it is at that price that we are going to despise our- selves for a while — not for the two pounds ! " And next day she was sent to report a distribu- tion of diplomas to graduating nurses by the Princess of Wales. Buddha was not an adequate confidant. Elfrida found him capable of absorbing her emotions indefinitely, but his still smile was not always responsive enough. So she made a little feast, and asked Golightly Ticke to tea, the Sunday after the Saturday that made her a salaried member of the London press. Golightly's felicitations were sincere and spasmodically sympathetic, but he found it impossible to conceal the fact that of late the world had not smiled equally upon him. In spite of the dramatic fervour with which the part of James Jones, a solicitor's clerk, had been rendered every evening, the piece at the Princess's had come to an unprofitable close, the theatre had been leased to an American Company, Phyllis had gone upon tour, and Mr. Ticke's abilities were at the service of chance. By the time he had reached his second cigarette, he was so sunk in cynicism that Elfrida applied herself delicately to discover tliese facts. Golightly made an elaborate effort to put her off. He threw his head back in his chair, and watched the faint rings of his cigarette curling into indistinguishability against the ceiling, and said that he was only the dust that blew about the narrow streets of the world, and why should she care to know which way the wind took him ? Lighting his third, he said as bitterly as that A DAUGHTER OP TO-DAY. 103 ds a week, you iinder- 1 be able to >t be oblipjed )w, Buddhn, iderstand, it despise our- nds ! " a distribu- rses by the ^t. Elfrida emotions not always little feast, unday after ed member felicitations ithetic, but fact that of upon him. which the :, had been > Princess's theatre had Phyllis had ies were at ad reached tt cynicism to discover -te effort to L his chair, itte curling 3iling, and J about the jhould she ook him ? ly as that engrossment would permit him, that the sooner — puff — it was over — puff— the sooner — puff — to sleep; and when the lighting was quite satis- factorily accomplished, he laughed harshly. " I shall think," said Elfrida, earnestly, **if you do not toll mo how things are with you, since they are bad, that you are not a true Bohemian — that you have scruples ! " " You know better — at least I hope you do — than to charge me with that," Golightly returned with an inflection full of reproachful meaning. ** I — I drank myself to sleep last night, Miss Bell. "When the candle flickered out, I thought that it was all over — curious sensation. This morning," he added, looking through his half-closed eye- lashes with sardonic stage effect, ** I wished it had been " '* Tell me," Elfrida insisted gently. Mr. Ticke then told her, looking attentively at his long thin fingers. He told her tersely, it did not take long ; and in the end he doubled up his hand and pulled a crumpled cuff down over it. ** To me," he said, "a thing like that repre- sents the worst of it. When I look at that I feel capable of crime. I don't know whether you'll understand, but the consideration of what my finer self suffers through sordidness of this sort, some- times makes me think that to rob a bank would be an act of virtue." ** I understand," said Elfrida. ** Washerwomen, as a class, are callous ; I sup- pose the alkalies they use finally penetrate to their souls. I said to mine last Thursday, * But I must be clean, Mrs. Binkley,' and the creature replied, * I don't see at all> Mr. Ticks ' — she has an odious habit of calling me Mr. Ticks — ' why you shouldn't go dirty occasional.' She seemed to think she had made a joke." 104 A DAUGHTER OP TO-DAY. **Thcy live to be paid," Elfrida said, with liard philosophy. And then she questioned him delicately about his play. Could she induce him to show it to her, some day? Her opinion was worth nothing really- -oh no, absolutely nothing — but it would be a pleasure, if Golightly were sure he didn't mind. Gohghtly found it difficult in selecting phrases repressive enough to be artistic, in which to tell her that he would be delighted. When Mr. Ticke came in that evening he found upon his dressing-table a thick square envelope addressed to him in Elfrida's suggestive hand. With his finger and thumb, he immediately detected a round hardness in one corner ; and ho took some pains to open the letter so that nothing should fall out. He postponed the pleasure of reading it until he had carefully extracted the two ten-shilling pi ces, divested them of their bits of tissue paper, and put them in his waistcoat pocket. Then he held the letter nearer to the candle and read — ; ^ ' r * * I have thought about this for a whole hour. You must believe, please, that it is no vulgar impulse. I acknowledge it to be a very serious liberty, and in taking it, I rely upon not having misinterpreted the scope of the freedom which exists between us. In Bohemia — our country — one may share one's luck with a friend, n'cst-ce pas P I will not ask to be forgiven." *'Nice girl," said Mr. Golightly Ticke, taking off his boots. He went to bed rather resentfully conscious of the difference there was in the bene- factions of Miss Phyllis Fane. Shortly after this Mr. Ticke's own luck mended, and on two different occasions Elfrida found a A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ^05 saitl, with ioned him nduce him pinion was nothino — T were sure ig phrases ich to tell I he found fe envelope kive hand, amediately ir; and he it nothing leasure of ed the two eir bits of 'at pocket, andle and iour. You • impulse. )erty, and iterpreted tween us. are one's lot ask to B, taking isentfully he bene- mended, found a bunch of daffodils outside her door in the morning, that made a mute and graceful acknowledgment of the financial bond Mr. Ticke did not dream of offering to materialize in any other way. He felt his gratitude finely. It suggested to him a number of little directions in which he could make himself useful to Miss Bell, putting aside entirely the question of repayment. One of these resolved itself into an invitation from the Arcadia Club, of which Mr. Ticke was a member in impressive arrears, to their monthly mbxc in the Landscapists' rooms in Bond Street. The Arcadia Club had the most liberal scope of any in London, he told Elfrida, and included the most interesting people. Painters belonged to it, and sculptors, actors, novelists, musicians, journalists — perhaps above all journalists. A great many ladies were members — Elfrida would see — and they were always glad to welcome a new personality. The club recog- nized how the world had run to types, and how scarce and valuable personalities were in con- sequence. It was not a particularly conventional club, but he would arrange that. If Elfrida would accept his escort, Mrs. Tommy Morrow would meet her in the dressing-room, as a concession to the prejudices of society. " Mrs. Tommy is a brilliant woman in her wav," Mr. Ticke added. "She edits The Boudoir— \ might say she created The Boudoir. They call her the Queen of Arcadia. She has a great deal of manner." *' What does Mr. Tommy Morrow do?" Elfrida asked. But Golightly could not inform her as to Mr. Tommy Morrow's occupation. The rooms were half full when they arrived, and as the man in livery announced them, "Mrs. Morrow, Miss Bell, and Mr. Golightly Ticke," it 1 i! I 106 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. seemed to Elfrida that everybody turned simul- taneously to look. There was nobody to receive them; the man in livery published them, as it were, to the company, which she felt to be a more effective mode of entering society, when it was the society of the arts. She could not possibly help being aware that a great many people were look- ing in her direction over Mrs. Tommy Morrow's shoulder. Presently it became obvious that Mr. Tommy Morrow was also aware of it. The shoulder was a very feminine shoulder, with long lines curving forward into the sulphur-coloured gown that met them not too prematurely. Mrs. Tommy Morrow insisted upon her shoulder, and upon her neck, which was short behind but long in front, in effect, and curved up to a chin which was some- what too persistently thrust forward. Mrs. Tommy had a pretty face with an imperious expression — *' Just the face," as Golightly murmured to Elfrida, " to run The Boudoir.*' She seemed to know everybody, bowed right and left with varying degrees of cordiality, and said sharply, " No shop to-night ! " to a thin young woman in a high black silk, who came up to her, exclaiming, " Oh, Mrs. Morrow, that function at Sandringham has been postponed." Presently Mrs. Morrow's royal progress was interrupted by a gentleman who wished to present Signor Georgiadi — "the star of the evening," Golightly said hurriedly to Elfrida. Mrs. Morrow was ve: ^ gracious, but the little fat Italian with the long hair and drooping eyelids was atrociously embarrassed to respond to her compliments in English. He struggled so violently that Mrs. Morrow began to smile with a compassionate patronage which turned him a distressing terra cotta. Elfrida looked on for a few minutes, and then, as one of the group, she said quietly in y i A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 107 ned siinul- to receive them, as it be a more it was the )ssibly help were look- y Morrow's s that Mr. le shoulder lonfT lines ured gown :s. Tommy upon her S in front, was some- I's. Tommy pression — mured to seemed to th varying *'No shop high black " Oh, Mrs. has been gress was to present evening," s. Morrow ilian with trociously fments in hat Mrs. )assionate ling terra utes, and luietly in French, " And Italian opera in England, how do you find it, signor?" The Italian thanked her with every feature of his expressive countenance, and burst with polite enthusiasm into his opinion of the Albert Hall concerts. When he discovered Elfrida to be an American, and therefore not speci- ally susceptible to praise of English classical inter- pretations, he allowed himself to become critical, and their talk increased in liveliness and amiability. Mrs. Morrow listened with an appreciative air for a f 3W minutes, playing with her fan, then she turned to Mr. Ticke — *' Golightly," she said acidly, 'Tm dying of thirst. You shall take me to the refreshment- room." So the star of the evening was abandoned to Elfrida, and, finding in her a refuge from the dreadful English lady, he clung to her. She was so occupied with him in this character that almost all the other distinguished people who attended the soiree of the Arcadia Club escaped her. Golightly asked her reproachfully afterwards how he could possibly have pointed them out to her, absorbed as she was — and some of them would have been so pleased to be introduced to her. She met a few notwithstanding ; they were chiefly unmarried ladies of middle age who immediately mentioned the paper they were connected with, and one or two of them, learning that she was a new-comer, kindly gave her their cards and asked her to come and see them any second Tuesday. They had indefinite and primitive ideas of doing their hair, and they were certainly mal toiiniee, but Elfrida saw that she made a novel impression upon them, that they would remember her and talk of her. Seeing that other things became less note- worthy. She observed, however, that these ladies were more or less emancipated, on easy terms with io8 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. U0 the facts of life, free from the prejud'ces that tied the souls of the people she saw shopping at the Stores, for instance. That, and a familiarity with the exigencies of copy at short notice, was discernible in the way they talked and looked about them; and the readiness with which each produced a pencil and a card suggested that she might have decorated the staff of her journal an appreciable number of years, if that supposition had not been forbidden by the fact that the feminine element in journalism is of comparatively recent introduction. Elfrida wondered what they had occupied themselves with before. It did not detract from her sense of the success of the evening — Golightly Ticke went about telling everybody that she was the new American writer on the yipe — to feel herself altogether the youngest person l^resent, and manifestly the most effectively dressed, in her cloudy black net and daffodils. Her spirits rose as she looked at the other women with a keen instinct that assured her she would win, if it were only a matter of a race with them. She had never had the feeling in any security before ; it lifted her and carried her on in a wave of exhilaration. Golightly Ticke, taldng her in turn to the buffet for lemonade and a sandwich, told her that he knew she would enjoy it — she must be enjoying it, she looked in such capital form. It was the first time she had been near the buffet, so she had not had the opportunity of observing how important a feature the lemonade and sandwiches formed in the entertainment of the evening — how persistently the representatives of the arts, with varying numbers of buttons off their gloves, returned to this light refreshment. Elfrida thanked Mrs. Tommy Morrow very sweetly for her chaperonage in the cloak-room when the hour of departure came. A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 109 that tied ing at the familiarity otice, was nd looked hich each that she ournal an upposition that the paratively tvhat they ^t did not le evening everybody n the Af/e st person y dressed, ier spirits th a keen if it were lad never lifted her ilaration. he buffet that he joying it, the first i had not nportant •rnied in sistently varying irned to w very ik-room : "Well," said Mrs. Morrow, "you can say you have seen a characteristic London literary gathering." " Yes, thanks," said Elfrida ; and then, looking about her for a commonplace, "How much taller the women seem to be than the men ! " she remarked. "Yes," returned Mrs. Tommy Morrow. "Da Maurier drew attention to that in Punch some time ago." CHAPTER XIII. Janet Cardiff, running downstairs to the drawing- room from the top story of the house in Kensington Square, with the knowledge that a new American girl who wrote very clever things about pictures awaited her there, tried to remember just what sort of description John Kendal had given of her visitor. Her recollection was vague as to detail ; she could not anticipate a single point with certainty, perhaps because she had not paid particular attention at the time. She had been given a distinct impression that she might expect to be interested, however, which accounted for her running downstairs. Nothing hastened Janet Cardiff's footsteps more than the prospect of anybody interesting. She and her father declared that it was their great misfortune to be thoroughly respectable, it cut them off from so much. It was in particular the girl's complaint against their life that humanity, as they knew it, was rather a neutral-tinted, carefully woven fabric too largely "machine-made," as she told herself with a discontent which the various Fellows of the Royal Society and members of the Athenaeum Club with t no A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. whom the CardifTi^ were in the hiibit of (hiiin^ coukl hardly have thought themselves capable of inspiring. It seemed to Janet that nobody crossed their path until his or her reputation was made, and that by the time people had made their reputations they succumbed to them and became uninteresting. She told herself at once that nothing Kendal could have said would have prepared her for this American, and that certainly nothing she had seen or read of other Americans did. Elfrida was standing beside the open window looking out. As Janet came in, a breeze wavered through and lifted the flufify hair about her visitor's forehead, and the scent of the growing things in the little square came with it into the room. She turned slowly, with grave wide eyes and a plaintive indrawing of her pretty underlip, and held out three full-blown gracious Marechal Neil roses on long slender stems. "I have brought you these," she said, with a charming effect of simplicity, " to make me welcome. There was no reason — none whatever — why I should be welcome, so I made one. You will not be angry — perhaps?" Janet banished her conventional *' Very glad to see you" instantly. She took the roses with a quick thrill of pleasure. Afterwards she told herself that she was not touched, not in the least, she did not quite know why. But she freely acknowledged that she was more than amused. "How charming of you!" she said. "But I have to thank you for coming as well. Now let us shake hands, or we shan't feel properly acquainted." Janet detected a half-tone of patronage in her voice, and fell into a rage with herself because of it. She looked at Elfrida to note a possible resent- ment, but there was none. If she had looked a 'ii A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. I I I t of (lininf^ capable of )0(ly crossed was made, made their md became ing Kendal her for this le had seen ^Ifrida was ig out. As irongh and s forehead, n the little She turned I plaintive 1 held out il roses on id, with a make me 5 whatever one. You 3ry glad to es with a she told the least, ihe freely lused. "But I ^cw let us uainted." ge in her ecause of le resent- looked a trifle more Bharply, she raij^lit have observed a subtler patronage in the little smile her visitor received this commonplace with ; but, like the other, she was too much occupied in considering her personal effect. She had l)ecomo suddenly desirous that it should be a good one. Elfrida went on in the personal key. " I suppose you are very tired of hearing such things," she said, **but 1 owe you so much." This was not quite justifiable, for ^liss Cardiff was only a successful writer in the magazines, whose name was very familiar to other people who wrote in them, and had a pleasant association for the reading public. It was by no means fame — she would have been the first to laugh at the magniloquence of the word in any personal con- nection. For her father she Mould accept a measure of it, and only deplored that the lack of public interest in Persian made the measure small. She had never confessed to a soul how largely she herself was unacquainted with his books, and how considerably her knowledge of her father's specialty was covered by the opinion that Persian was a very decorative character. She could not let Elfrida suppose that she thought this anything but a politeness. '*0h, thanks— impossible ! " she cried gaily; " indeed, I assure you it is months since I heard anything so agreeable," which was also a departure from the strictest verity. ** But, truly ! I'm afraid I am very clumsy," Elfrida added with a pretty dignity, " but I should like to assure you of that." " If you have allowed me to amuse you now and then for half an hour, it has been very good of you," Janet returned, looking at Miss Bell with rather more curious interest than she thought it polite to show. It began to seem to her, however, 112 A DAUGIlTEll OP TO-DAY. Ill 1 that the conventional side of the occasion was not ohvioiis from any point of view. " You arc an American, aren't you ? " she aslied. " Mr. Kendal told mo no. I suppose one oughtn't to say that one would like to he an American. But you have such a pull ! — I know I should like living there." Elfrida gave herself the effect of considering the matter earnestly. It flitted, really, over the surface of her mind, which was engaged in ahsorh- ing Janet, and the room, and the situation. " Perhaps it is hotter to he horn in America than in — most places," she said, with a half-glance at the prim square outside. " It gives you a point of view that is — splendid." In hesitating this way hefore her adjectives, she always made her listeners douhly attentive to what she had to say. " And having heen deprived of so much that you have over here, we like England hetter, perhaps, when we get it, than you do. But nohody wouhl live in constant deprivation. No; you wouldn't like living there. Except in New York, and, oh, I shouid say Santa Barbara, and New Orleans, perhaps, the life over there is — infernal." "You are like a shower-bath," said Janet to herself, but the shower-bath had no palpable effect upon her. ** What have we that is so important that you haven't got ? " she asked. ''Quantities of things." Elfrida hesitated, not absolutely sure of the wisdom of her example. Then she ventured it. " The picturesqueness of society — your duchesses and your women in the greengrocers' shops." It was not wise, she saw instantly. "Really? It is so difficult to understand that duchesses are interesting — out of novels, and the greengrocers' wives are a good deal alike too, aren't they?" A DAUOIITEU OF TO-DAY. I i: " It's tlio contrast. You sco, our iUkjIicsscs wore grccnp;rocerH' wives the day before yestordiiy, and our greengrocers' wives subscribo to tho magazines. It's all mixed up, and there are no high lights anywhere. You move before us in a sort oif panoramic pageant," Elfrida went on, determined to redeem her point, " with your (^)uecn and Empress of India — she ought to 1)0 riding on an elephant, oughtn't she ? — in front, and all your princes and nobles with their swords drawn to protect her. Then your upper classes and your upper middle classes, walking stillly two and two ; and then your lower middle classes with largo families, dropping their A's ; and then your hideous people from the slums. And besides," she added, with prettily repressed enthusiasm, " there is the shadowy procession of all the people that have gone before, and we can see that you are a good deal like them, though they are more interesting still. It is very pictorial " She stopped suddenly and consciously, as if she had said too much, and Janet felt that she was suggestively apologized to. . ''Doesn't the phenomenal squash make up for all that ? " she asked. " It would to me. I'm dying to see the phenomenal squash, and tho prodigious water-melon, and " ;* And the Falls of Niagara?" Elfrida put in, with the faintest turning down of the corners of her mouth. "I'm afraid our wonders are chiefly natural, and largely vegetable, as you say." "But they are wonders. Everything here has been measured so many times. Besides, haven't you got the Elevated Railway, and a statue of Liberty, and the ' Jeanne d'Arc,' and W. D. Howells, to say nothing of a whole string of poets — good grey poets, that wear beards and laurels, and fanciful young ones that dance in garlands m ^! in! I ! * I II I!; I i : i 114 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. on the back pages of The Century? Oh, I know them all — the dear things ! and I'm quite sure their ideas are indigenous to the soil ! " Elfrida let her eyes tell her appreciation, and also the fact that she would take courage that she was gaining confidence. " I'm glad you like them," she said. " Howclls would do if he would stop writing about virtuous sewing girls, and give us some real romans jhsyeho- locfiqnes. But he is too much afraid of soiling his hands, that monsieur; his hetes humaines arc always conventionalized, and generally come out at the end wearing the halo of the redeemed. Ho always reminds me of Cruikshank's picture of the ghost being put out by the extinguisher in the ' Christmas Carol.' ' His genius is the ghost, and conventionality is the extinguisher. But it is genius, so it's a pity." "It seems to me that Howells deals honestly with his materials," Janet said, instinctively stilling the jar of Elfrida's regardless note. She was so pretty, this new creature, and she had such original ways. Janet must let her talk about romans ^^sychologiques, or worse things if she wanted to. "To me he has a tremendous appearance of sincerity, psychological and other. But do you know I don't think the Englis>- or American people are exactly calculated to offer the sort of material you mean. The hete is too conscious of his moral fibre when he's respectable ; and when he isn't respectable he doesn't commit picturesque crimes — he steals and boozes. I dare say he's bestial enough, but pure unrelieved filth can i, be transmuted into literature, and as a people we're perfectly devoid of that extraordinary artistic nature that it makes such a foil for in the Latins. That is really the only excuse the naturalists have ! " i A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 115 Oh, I know quite sure iiation, and ige that she *' Howclls )ut virtuous nans imjcho- ; soiling his imaincs arc y come out Demed. Ho eture of the sher in the ) ghost, and But it is ils honestly instinctively note. She id she had 3t her talk ,e things if tremendous . and other. Englis/" or ted to offer hcte is too respectable ; sn't commit zes. I dare elieved filth and as a itraordinary foil for in excuse the i *' Excuse ! " Elfrida repeated, with a bewildered look. ** You had Wainwright ! " she added hastily. '' Xous nous en filicitons / We've got him still — in Madame Tussaud's ! " cried Janet. ** Ho poisoned for money, in cold blood — not exactly an artistic vice ! Oh, he won't do ! " she laughed triumphantly, " if he did write charming things about the Renaissance ! Besides, he illustrates my case ; amongst us he was a phenomenon, like the elephant-headed man. Fienomena are for the scientists. You don't mean to tell me that any fiction that pretends to call itself artistic has a right to touch them ? " By this time they had absolutely forgotten that up to twenty minutes ago they had never seen each other before. Already they had mutely and consciously begun to rejoice that they had come together, already each of them promised herself the exploration of the other's nature with the preliminary idea that it would be a satisfying, at least an interesting process. The impulse made Elfrida almost natural, and Janet perceived this with quick self-congratulation. Already she had made up her mind that this manner was a pretty mask which it would be her business to remove. " But — but you're not in it ! " Elfrida returned. *' Pardon me, but you're not there, you know ! Art has no ideal but truth, and to conventionalize truth is to damn it ! In the most commonplace material there is always truth, but here they conventionalize it out of all " "Oh!" cried Janet. '* We're a c. ivcniional people, I assure you. Miss Bell. And ava you, tor how could you change your spots in a hundred years ? The material here is conventional. Daudet couldn't have written for us. Our wicked women are too inglorious. Now, ' Sappho ' " Miss Cardiff stopped at the ringing of the doorbell. ii6 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. " Oh ! " she said. " Here is my father. You will let me give you a cup of tea now, won't you ? " The maid was bringing in the tray. " I should like you to meet my father." Lawrence Cardiff's grasp was on the door- handle almost as she spoke. Seeing Elfrida, he involuntarily put up his hand to settle the back of his coat-collar — these little middle-aged ways were growing upon him — and shook hands with her, as Janet introduced them, with the courtly impenetrable agreeableness that always provoked curiosity about him in strangers, and often led to his being taken for somebody more important than he was — usually somebody in politics. Elfrida saw that he was quite different from her concep- tion of a University professor with a reputation in Persian and a clever daughter of twenty-four. He was straight and slender, for one thing; he had gay, inquiring eyes, and fair hair just beginning to show grey where the ends were brushed back; and Elfrida immediately became aware that his features were as modern and as mobile as possible. She had a moment of in- decision and surprise — indecision as to the most effective way of presenting herself, and surprise that it should be necessary to decide upon any way. It had never occurred to her that a gentle- man who had won scientific celebrity by digging about Arabic roots, and who had contributed a daughter like Janet to the popular magazines, could claim anything of her beyond a highly respectful consideration. In moments when she hoped to know the Cardiffs well she had pictured herself doing little graceful acts of politeness towards this paternal person— acts connected with his spectacles, his Athenian, his footstool. But apparently she had to meet a knight and not a pawn. A DAUGHTER OP TO-DAY. 117 '. You will on't you ? " " I should the door- Elfrida, he le the back )-aged ways hands with the courtly ^s provoked often led to >ortant than !S. Elfrida her concep- i. reputation twenty-four. 3 thing ; he hair just ends were ;ely became lern and as nent of in- to the most nd surprise e upon any lat a gentle- by digging ntributed a magazines, d a highly s when she lad pictured f politeness mected with tstool. But jht and not She was hardly aware of taking counsel with herself, and the way she abandoned her hesitations, and what Janet was inwardly calling her Burne- Jonesisms, had all the effect of an excess of unconsciousness. Janet Cardiff watched it with delight. '* But why," she asked herself in wonder, '' should she have been so affected — if it was affectation — with mc ? " She would decide wh'^ther it was or was not afterwards, she thought. Mean- while she was glad her father had thought of sayinp; something nice about the art criticism in the Decade; he was putting it so much better than she could, and it would do for both of them. " You paint yourself, I fancy ? " Mr. Cardiff was saying lightly. There was no answer ^or an instant, or perhaps three. Elfrida was looking down. Presently she raised her eyes, and they were larger than ever, and wet. " No," she said a little tensely ; " I have tried " — "trr-hied," she pronounced it — *'but — but I cannot." Lawrence Cardiff looked at hi? teaspoon in a considering way, and Janet reflected, not without indignation, that this was the manner in which people who cared for them might be expected to speak of the dead. But Elfrida cut short the reflection by turning to her brightly. " When Mr. Cardiff came in," she said, *' you were telling me why a Daudet could not write about the English. It was something about ' Sappho.' " Mr. Cardiff' looked up curiously, and Janet, glancing in her father's direction, reddened. Did this strange young woman not realize that it was impossible to discuss beings hke ** Sappho " with one's father in the room ? *' It seems to me it is the exception in that class, ii8 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. h i ' 1 i as in all classes, that rewards interest," Elfrida continued. "That rewards interest?" What might she not say next ? "Yes," interrupted Janet, desperately, "but then my father came in and changed the subject of our conversation. Where are you living. Miss Bell ? " "Near Fleet Street," said Elfrida, rising. "I find the localitv most interesting, when I can see it. I can patronize the Roman baths, and lunch at Dr. Johnson's pet tavern, and attend service in the church of the real Templars if I like. It is delightful. I did go to the Templar church a fortnight ago," she added, " and I saw such a horrible thing that I am not sure that I will go again. Tnere is a beautiful old Crusader lying there in stone, and on his feet a man who sat near had hung his silk hat ! And nobody interfered ! Why do you laugh ? " When she had fairly gone, Lawrence and Janet Cardiff looked at one another, and smiled. "Well," cried Janet, "it's a find, isn't it, daddy ? " Her father shrugged his shoulders. His manner said that he was not pleased, but Janet found a tone in his voice that told her the impression of Elfrida had not been altogether distasteful. " Fin de siccle,'' he said. " Perhaps," Janet answered, looking out of the window, " a little ^/i/i de siecle.** " Did you notice," asked Lawrence Cardiff, " that she didn't tell you where she was living ? " "Didn't she? Neitht- she did. But we can easily find out from John Kendal." ' I: A DAUGTI^ER OF TO-DAY. 119 : out of the CHAPTER XIV. Kkndal hardly admitted to himself that his ac({uaintaiice with Elfrida had gone heyond the l)oint of impartial ohservation. The i)roof of its impartiality, if he had thought of seeking it, would have appeared to him to lie in the fact that he found her, in her personality, her ideis and her effects, to he damaged by London. The con- ventionality — Kendal's careless generalization pre- ferred a broad term — of the place made her extreme in every way, and it had recently come to be a conclusion with him that English con- ventionality, in moderation, was not who!' 7 to bo smiled at. Returning to it, its protectiveness had impressed him strongly, and he had a comforting sense of the responsibility it imposed upon society. Paris and the Quartier stood out against it in his mind like something full of light and colour and transient passion on the stage; something to bo remembered with recurring thrills of keen satisfac- tion and to be seen again. It had been more than this, he acknowledged, for he had brought out of it an element that lightened his life and vitalized his work, and gave an element of joyousness to his imagination — it was certain that he would go back there. And Miss Bell had been in it and of it — so much in it and of it that he felt impatient with her for permitting herself to be herself in any other environment. He asked himself why she could not see tnat she was crudely at variance with all colour and atmosphere and law in her present one, and he speculated as to the propriety of telling her so, of advising her outright as to the expediency, in her own interest, of being other than herself in London. That was what it came to, he reflected in deciding that he could not do I20 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAV. ! ,11! I this if the girl's convictions and motives and aims were real, and he was beginning to think they were real. And although he had found himself at liberty to say to her things that were harder to hear, he felt a curious repugnance to giving her any inkling of what he thought about this ; it would be a hideous thing to do, he concluded, an unforgivable thing, and an actual hurt. Kendal had for women the readiest consideration, and though one of the odd things he found in Elfrida was the slight degree to which she evoked it in him, he recoiled instinctively from any reasoned action which would distress her. But his sense of her inconsistency with British institutions — at least he fancied it was that — led him to discourage somewhat, in the highest way, Miss Halifax's interested inquiries about her. The inquiries suggested dimly that eccentricity and obscurity might be overlooked in any one whose personality really had a value for Mr. Kendal, and made an attempt which was heroic, considering the delicacy of Miss Halifax's scruples, to measure his appreciation of Miss Bell as a writer — to Miss Halifax the word wore a halo — and as an individual. If she did not succeed, it was partly because he had not himself quite decided whether Elfrida in London was delightful or intolerable, and partly because he had no desire to be complicated in social relations which, he told himself, must be either ludicrous or insincere. The Halifaxes were not in any sense literary ; their proper pretensions to that sort of society were buried with Sir William, who had been editor of the Brown Quarterly in his day, and many other things. They had inherited his friends as they had inherited his manuscripts, and, in spite of a grievous inability to edit either of them, they held to one legacy as fast as to the other. Kendal A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 121 es and aims think they und himself were harder ,0 giving her out this ; it oncluded, an art. Kendal jration, and id in Elfrida evoked it in ny reasoned with British as that — led tiighest way, it her. The ntricity and r one whose Kendal, and isidering the to measure ler — to Miss individual. because he Elfrida in and partly plicated in f, must be se literary ; of society been editor many other ds as they spite of a 1, they held Kendal thought with a somewhat repelled amusement of any attempt of theirs to assimilate Elfrida. It was dixierent with the Cardiffs, but even under their enthusiastic encouragement he was dis- inclined to be anything but discreet and cautious al)out Miss Bell. In one way and another she was at all events a young lady of potentialities, he reflected ; and, with a view to their effect among one's friends, it might be as well to understand them. He even went so far as to say to himself that Janet was such a thoroughly nice girl as she was ; and then he smiled inwardly at the thought of how angry she would be at the thought of his putting any prudish considerations on her account into the balance against an interesting acquaint- ance, lie had, nevertheless, a distinct satisfaction in the fact that it was really circumstances, in the shape of the iJerade article, that had brought them together, and that he could hardly charge himself with being more than an irresponsible agent in the matter. Under the influence of such considerations Kendal did not write to Elfrida at the Arje office asking her address, as he had immediately re- solved to do when he discovered that she had gone away without telling him where he might find her. It seemed to him that he could not very well see her at her lodgings. And the pleasure of coming upon her suddenly, as she closed the door of the Age behind her and stepped out into Fleet Street a fortnight later, overcame him too quickly to permit him to reflect that he was yielding to an opposite impulse in asking her to dine with him at Baliero's, as they might have done in Paris. It was an unlooked-for opportunity, and it roused a desire which he had not lately been calculating upon, a desire to talk with her about all sorts of things, to feel the exhilaration of her tW! ^'i 122 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. single-mindedness, to find out more about her, to guess at the meanings behind her eyes. If any privileged cynic had taken the charce to ask him whether he found them expressive of purely abstract significance, Kendal would have answered afiirmativel}' in all honesty. And he would have added a confession of his curiosity to discover what she was capable of, if she was capable of anything — which he considered legiti- mate enough. At the moment, however, he had no time to think of anything but an inducement, and he dashed through whole pickets of scruples to find one. *' They give one such capital straw- berry ices at Baliero's," he begged her to believe. His resolutions did not even reassert themselves when she refused. He was conscious only that it was a bore that she should refuse, and very in- consistent — hadn't she often dined with him at the Cafe Florian ? His gratification was con- siderable when she added, **They smoke there, you know," and it became obvious, by whatever carious process of reasoning she arrived at it, that it was Baliero's restaurant she objected to, and not his society. "Well," he urged, "there are plenty of places where they don't smoke, though it didn't occur to me that " "Oh," she laughed, "but you must allow it to occur to you ; " and she put her finger on her lip. Considering their solitariness in the crowd, he thought there was no reason why he should not say that he was under the impression that she liked the smell of tobacco. " There are other places," she went on. " There is a sweet little green and white place like a dairy in Oxford Street, that calls itself the * Hyacinth,' which is sacred to ladies and to gentlemen properly f 4 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 123 ibout her, to I. the charce jxpressive of would have ty. And he 1 curiosity to if she was xlered legiti- jver, he had inducement, 3 of scruples ipital straw- ' to believe, t themselves only that it and very in- vith him at in was con- moke there, by whatever ed at it, that sted to, and ity of places In't occur to ast allow it )r finger on le crowd, he should not on that she pn. " There like a dairy * Hyacinth,' len properly chaperoned. If you would invite me to dine with yon there I should like it very much." "Anywhere!" he said. He accepted her pro- posal to dine at the Hyacinth with the same un- questioning pleasure which he would have had in accepting her proposal to dine at the top of the Monument, that evening ; but he felt an undue perplexity at its terms, which was vaguely dis- turbing. How could it possibly matter ! Did she suppose that she advanced palpably nearer to the proprieties in dining with him in one place rather than the other ? There was an unreasonableness about that which irritated him. He felt it more distinctly when she proposed taking an omnibus instead of the cab he had signalled. ** Oh, of course, if you prefer it," he said ; and there was almost a trace of injured feeling in his voice. It was so much easier to talk in a cab. He lost his apprehensions presently, for it became obvious to him that this was only a mood, coming, as he said to himself devoutly, from the Lord knew what combination of circumstances — he would think that out afterwards, — but making Elfrida none the less agreeable while it lasted. Under its influence she kept away from all the matters she was fondest of discussing with that extraordinary candour and startling equity of hers, and talked to him with a pretty cleverness about commonplaces of sorts arising out of the day's news, the shops, the weather. She treated them all with a gaiety that made her face a fascinating study while she talked and pointed them, as it were, with all the little poises and expressions and reserves which are commonly a feminine result of considerable social training. Kendal, entering into her whim, involuntarily compared her with an acknowledged successful girl of the season, with 124 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. M'i I i whom lio Lad sat out two dances the night before in Eaton Square, to the successful girl's disadvan- tage. Finding something lacking in that, he came upon a better analogy in a young married lady of the diplomatic circle, who had lately been dipping the third finger of her left hand into politics with the effect of considerably increasing her note. This struck him as satisfactory, and he enjoyed finding completion for his parallel wherever her words and gestures offered it. He took her at the wish she implied, and eddied with her round the pool which some counter-current of her nature had made for the hour in its stream, pleasantly enough. He attempted once, as Elfrida unbuttoned her gloves at their little table at the Hyacinth, to get her to talk about her work on the Af/e. "Please — please don't mention that," she said. ** It is too revolting. You don't know how it makes me suffer." A moment later she "'eturned to it of her own accord, however. " It is absurd to try to extract pledges from people," she said; *'but I should really be happier — mneh happier — if you would promise me something." ** * By Heaven, I will promise ajiythinr/,' " Kendal quoted laughing, from a poet much in vogue. " Only this — I hope I am not selfish " — she hesi- tated ; '* but I think — yes, I think I must be selfish here. It is that you will never read the A(je." *' I never do ! " leapt to his lips, but he stopped it in time. *' And why ? " he asked instead. ** Ah, you know why. It is because you might recognize my work in it — by accident you might — and that would be so painful to me. It is not my best — please believe it is not my best." "On one condition I promise," he said, — "that wlien you do your best you will tell me where to find it." A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 12 She looked at him gravely and considered. As she did so, it seemed to Kendal that she was re- garding his whole moral, mental, and material nature ; he could almost see it reflected in the glass of her great dark eyes. *' Certainly, yes. That is fair — if you really and truly care to see it. And I don't know," she added, looking up at him from her soup, "that it matters whether you do or not, so long as you carefully and accurately pretend that you do. When my hest, my real best, sees the life of common " ** Type," he suggested. '* Type," she repeated unsmilingly, " I shall be so insatiate for criticism — I ought to say praise — that I shall even go so far as to send you a marked copy — vcrtj plainJij marked, with blue pencil. Already " — she smiled with a charming effect of assertiveness — " I have bought the blue pencil." ** Will it come soon ? " Kendal asked seriously. " Cher amiy'' Elfrida said, drawing her handsome brows together a little, **it will come sooner than you expect. That is what I want," she went on dcHberately, "more than anything else in the whole world, to do things— ^oo^Z things, you under- stand — and to have them appreciated and paid for in the admiration of people who feel and see and know. For me life has nothing else — except the thing that other people do, better and worse than mme." " Better and worse than yours," Kendal repeated. " Can't you think of them apart ? " " No, I can't," Elfrida interrupted. " I have tried, and I can not. I know it's a weakness — at least, I am half persuaded that it is, — but i must have the personal standard in everything." " But you are a hero-worshipper — often I have seen you at it." 126 A DAUGIITEU OF TO-DAY. " Yes," bIic said cynically, while the white- capped maid who handed Kendal asparagus stared at her with a curioaity few of the Hyacinth's lady- diners inspired. " And when I look into that I find it is because of a secret consciousness that tells mo that I, in the hero's place, should have done just the same thing. Or else it is because of the gratification my vanity iinds in my sympathy with his work, whatever it is. Oh, it is no special virtue, my kind of hero-worship." The g'rl ^ooked across at Kendal, and laughed a bright fr'^.nk laugh, hi which was no discontent with what she had been telling him. '* You are candid," Kendal said, ** Oh yes, I'm candid. I don't mind lying for a noble end, but it isn't a noble end to deceive one's self." " * Oh purblind race of miserable men ! ' " Kendal began lightly, but she stopped him. ** Don't," she cried. ** Nothing spoils conversa- tion like quotations. Besides, that's such a trite one — I learned it at school ! " But Kendal's offence was clearly in his manner. It seemed to Elfrida that he would never sincerely consider what she had to say about herself. She went on softly, holding him with her eyes — "You may find me a simple creature " ** A propos," laughed ^^^endal, easily, "what is this particular noble end ? " *'Bah!" she said. "You are right. It is a lie, and it had no end at all. I am complex enough, I dare say. But this is true, that my egotism is like a little flame within me. All the best things feed it, and it is so clear that I see everything in its light. To me it is most dear and valuable— it simplifies things so. I assure you that I wouldn't be one of the sloppy unselfish people the world is full of for anything ! " A DAUGIITEU OF TO-DAY. 12 the whitc- agiis sturt'd inth's Indy- into that I MHncss that hould havo because of y sympathy 8 no special g'rl 'ooked i'';nk Iau<,'h, le had been d lying for to deceive ! ' " Kendal s convcrsa- uch a trite lis manner. )x sincerely rself. She BS — »> » "what is ti. It is a n complex J, that my B. All the that I see it dear and Lssure you ^ unselfish 1 " As a source of gratification isn't it ruilior limited ? " Kendal asked. lie was thinking of the; extra drop of nervous fluid in Americans ho liad been reading about in the afternoon, and wonder- ing if it often had this development. *' I don't quite know what you mean," Elfrida replied. " It isn't a source of gratification , it's a channel. And it intensifies everything so that 1 don't care how little comes that way. If there's anything of mo left when I die, it will be that little fierce fiame. And when I do the tiniest thing — write the shortest sentence that rings true, sec a beauty or a joy which the common herd pass by, I have my whole life in the flame and it becomes my soul. I'm sure I have no other ! When you say that there is no real pleasure in the world that does not come through art," Elfrida went on again, widening her eyes seriously, ** don't you feel as if you were uttering something religious — part of a creed — as the Mussulman feels when he says, * there is no God but one God, and Mahomet is His Prophet ' ? I do." *' I never say it," Kendal returned with a smile. "Does that make one a Philistine, or a Hindu, or what?" ** You a Philistine ! " Elfrida cried, as they rose from the little table. "You are saying a thing that is absolutely wicked." Her quasi-conventional mood had vanished com- pletely, and as they drove together in a hansom through the mysterious movement of the lamp-lit London streets, toward her lodging, she plunged enjoyingly into certain theories of her religion, which embraced Arnold and Aristotle and did not exclude Mr. Whistler, a composite creed, making wide, ineffectual, and presumptuous grasps to include all beauty and all faith : she threw hand- fuls of these things at Kendal, who watched them I 128 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. Ill ,1 I 111! vanish into the air with pleasure and asked if he might smoke. At which she reflected, deciding that for the present he might not ; hut when they reached her lodgings she would perrait him to renew his acquaintance with Buddha, and give him a cigarette. During the hour they smoked and talked together Elfrida was wholly delightful ; and only one thing occurred to mar the enjoyment of the evening, as Kendal remembered it. That was Mr. Golightly Ticke, who came up and smoked too, and seemed to have extraordinary familiarity, for such an utterly impossible person, with Miss Bell's literary engagements. On his way home Kendal reflected that it was doubtless a question of time — she would take to the customs of civilization by degrees, and the sooner the better. CHAPTEK XV. Shortly afterward, Elfrida read^ Mr. Pater's ** Marius," with what she herself called, somewhat insincerely, a " hungry and hopeless " dehght. I cannot say that this Oxonian's tender classical re- creation had any critical effect upon her; she probably found it much too limpid and untroubled to move her in the least. I mention it by way of saying that Lawrence Cardiff lent it to her with a smile of half-indulgent, half-contemptuous assent to some of her ideas, which was altered when she returned the volume, by the active necessity of defending his own. Elfrida had been accepted at the Cardiffs' with the ready tolerance which they had for types that were remarkable to them and not entirely disagreeable, though Janet began by telling her father that it was impossible that A DAUGHTER OP TO-DAY. 129 Elfrida should be a type — she was an exception of the most exceptionable sort. ** I'll admit her to be abnormal, if you like," Cardiff would return, " but only from an insular point of view. I dare say they grow that way in Illinois." But that was in the early stages of their acquaintance with Miss Bell, which ripened with unprecedented rapidity for an acquaintance in Kensington Square. It was before Janet had taken to walking across the Gardens with Elfrida in the half-hour between tea-time and dressing for dinner, when the two young women, sometimes under driping umbrellas, would let the right omnibus follow the wrong one toward Fleet Street twice and thrice in their dis- inclination to postpone what they had to say to each other. It was also before Elfrida's invasion of the library and fee-simple of the books, and before she had said there many things that were original, some that were impertinent, and a few that were true. The Cardiff's discussed her less freely as the weeks went on — a sure sign that she was becoming better liked, accepted less as a phenomenon and more as a friend. There grew up in Janet the beginnings of the strong affection which she felt for a very few people, an affection which invariably mingled itself with a lively desire to bestir herself on their account, to be fully in- formed as to their circumstances, and, above all, to possess relations of absolute directness with them. She had an imperious successful strain which insisted upon all this; she was a capable creature of much perception for twenty-four, and she had a sense of injury when, for any reason, she was not allowed to use her faculties for the benefit of any one she liked in a way which excited the desire to do it. Janet had to reproach herself, when she thought of it, that this sort of liking seldom came by entirely approved channels, and I30 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 'Will I m, \ I hardly ever foni^d an object in her visiting-list. Its first and almost its only essential, to speak boldly, was an artistic susceptibility with some sort of relation to her own, which her visiting-list did not often supply, though it might have been said to overflow with more widely recognized virtues. For that. Miss Cardiff was known to bo willing to sacrifice the Thirty-nine Articles, re- spectable antecedents, the possession of a dress coat. Her willingness was the more widely known because, in the circle which fate had drawn around her — ironically, she sometimes thought, — it was not usual to sacrifice these things. As for Janet's own artistic susceptibility, it was a very private atmosphere of her soul. She breathed it, one might say, only occasionally, and with a kind of delicious shame. She waa incapable of sharing her caught-up felicity there with any one, but it was indispensable that she should see it sometimco in the eyes of others less contained, less conscious, whose sense of humour might be more slender perhaps. Her own nature was practical and managing in its ordinary aspect, and she had a degree of tact that was always interfering with her love of honesty. Having established a friendship by the arbitrary law of sympathy, it must be ad- mitted that she had an instinctive way of trying to strengthen it by voluntary benefits, for affection was a great need with her. It was only about this time, and very gradually, that she began to realize how much more she cared for John Kendal than for other people. Since it seemed to be obvious that Kendal gave her only l share of the affectionate interest he had for humanity at large, the realization was not wholly agreeable, and Janet found Elfrida, on this account, even a more valuable distraction than she otherwise would. One of the matters Miss Bell I I A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 131 visiting-list, ial, to spcfik y with some r visiting-list lit have been y recognized known to bo Articles, re- n of a dress widely known Irawn around iglit, — it was Ls for Janet's very private ithed it, one ith a kind of ie of sharing ly one, but it it sometimco 3ss conscious, Qiore slender iractical and id she had a ring with her a friendship must be ad- vay of trying for affection ry gradually, h more she )ther peoi)le. Kendal gave ;erest he had ion was not frida, on this ion than she H's Miss Bell was in the habit of discussing with some vivacity was the sexlessness of artistic sympathy. Upon this subject Janet found her quite inspired. She made a valiant effort to illumine her thoughts of Kendal by the light Elfrida threw upon such matters ; and although she had to confess that the future was still hid in embarrassed darkness, she did manage to construct a theory by which it was possible to grope along for the present. She also cherished a hope that this trouble would leave her, as a fever abates in a night, that she would awake some morning, if she only had patience, strong and well. In other things Miss Cardiff was sometimes jarred rather than shocked by the American girl's mental attitudes — which, she began to find, were not so pufciuu cis her physical ones. Elfrida often left her repelled and dissenting. The dissent she showed vigorously, the repulsion she concealed, sore with herself because of the concealment. But she could not lose Elfrida, she told herself, and besides, it was only a matter of a little tolerance — time and life would change her, tone her inner self down into the something altogether exquisite and perfect that she was, to look at, now. Elfrida called the Cardiffs' house the oasis of Kensington, and valued her privileges there moro than she valued anything else in the circumstances about her, except perhaps, the privilege she enjoyed in making the single contribution to the Decade of which we know. That was an event lustrous in her memory, the more lustrous because it remained solitary; and when the editor's cheque made its tardy appearance, sho longed to keep it as a glorious archive, glorious that is to say, in suggestion, if not particularly impressive intrinsically. In the end she fought the temptation of giving herself a dinner a day for a fortnight out if 132 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ^? :l|i ! of it, and bought a slender gold bangle with the money, which she slipped upon her wrist with a resolution to keep it there always. It must bo believed that her personal decoration did not enter materially into this design; the bangle was an emblem of one success, and an earnest of others. She wore it as she might have worn a medal, except that a medal was a public voice, and the little gold hoop spoke only to her. After the triumph that the bangle signified, Elfrida felt most satisfaction in what was con- stantly present to her mind as her conquest of the Cardiifs. She measured its importance by their value. Iiev admiration for Janet's work in the beginning had been as sincere as her emulation of its degree of excellence had been passionate, and neither feeling had diminished with their intimacy. In Lawrence Cardiff she felt vaguely the qualities that made him a marked man among his fellows ; his intellectual breadth and keenness, his poise of brain, if one might call it so, and the hahilitc with which, without permitting it to be part of his character, he sometimes allowed himself to charm even people of whom he disapproved. These things were indeterminately present to her, and led her often to speculate as to how it was that Mr. Cardiff's work expressed him so little. It seemed to her that the one purpose of a personality like his was its expression, otherwise one might as well be of the ruck. **You write with your intellectual faculties only," she said to him once ; " your soul is curiously dumb." But that was later. The plane of Elfrida*s relations with Janet altered gradually, one might say, from the inclined, with Elfrida on her knees at the lower end, to the horizontal. It changed insensibly enough, through the freemasonry of confessed and unconfessed ideals, through growing attraction, through the A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 133 feeling they shared, though only Janet voiced it, that there was nothing but the opportunities and the experience of four years between them, that in the end Elfrida would do better, stronger, more original work than she. Elfrida was so much more original a person, Janet declared to herself ; so — and when she ' hesitated for this word she usually said '* enigmatical." The answer to the enigma, Janet was sure, would be written large in publishers' advertisements one day. In the mean- time it was a vast satisfaction to her to be, as it were, behind the enigma ; to consider it with the privileges of intimacy. These young women felt their friendship deeply, in their several ways. It held for them all sacredness and honour and obligation. For Elfrida it had an intrinsic beauty and interest, like a curio — she had half a dozen such curios in the museum of her friends — and for Janet it added something to existence that was not there before, more delightful and important than a mere opportunity of expansion. The time came speedily when it would have been a positive i)ain to either of theiu to hear the other discussed, however favourably. CHAPTER XVI. Lady Halifax and her daughter had met Miss Eell several times at the Cardiffs', in a casual way, before it occurred to either of them to take any sort of advantage of the acquaintance. The younger lady had a shivering and frightened delight in occasionally wading ankle-deep in unconventionality, but she had lively recollecUons in connection with the Cardiffs of Having been very nearly taken off her feet. They had since decided 134 A DAUGHTER OP TO-DAY. 'iiii M !' that it was more discreet to ignore Janet's enthusiasms, which were sometimes quite im- possible in their verdict, and always improbable. The literary ladies and gentlemen whom the ghost of the departed Sir William brought more or less unwillingly to Lady Halifax's drawing-rooms, were all of unexceptionable cachet; the Halifaxes were constantly seeing paragraphs about them in the ** Literary Gossip" department of the Athenian, mentioning their state of health, their retirement from scientific appointments, or the fact that their most recent work of fiction had reached its fourth edition. Lady Halifax always read the Athenian, even the publishers' announcements ; she liked to keep "in touch," she said, with the literary activities of the day, and it gave her a special gratification to notice the prosperity of her writing friends indicated in tall figures. Miss Halifax read it too, but she liked the " Art Notes " best ; it was a matter of complaint with her that the house was not more open to artists — new, original artists, like John Kendal. In answer to this Lady Halifax had a habit of stating that she did not see what more they could possibly want than the President of the Royal Academy, and the one or two others that came already. As for John Kendal, he \,as certainly new and original, but he was respectable, notwithstanding, and they could be certain that he was not putting iiis originality on, with a hearth-brush, for the sake of advertise- ment. Lady Halifax was not so sure about Elfrida's originality, of which she had been given a glimpse or two at first, and which the girl's intimacy with the Carditis would have presupposed, in any case. But presently, and somewhat to Lady Halifax's perplexity. Miss Bell's originality disappeared. It seemed to melt into the azure of perfect good breeding, flecked by little clouds of A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 135 pretty sayings and politenesses, whenever chance brought her under Lady Halifax's observation. A not unreasonable solution of the problem might have been found in Elfrida's instinctive objection to casting her pearls where they are proverbially unappreciated, and the necessity in her nature of pleasing herself by one form of agreeable behaviour if not by another. Lady Halifax, however, ascribed it to the improving influence of insular institu- tions, and finally concluded that it ought to be followed up. Elfrida wore amber and white the evening on which Lady Halifax followed it up— a Parisian modification of a design carried out originally by the Sparta dressmaker with a degree of hysteria, under Miss Bell's direction. She wore it with a touch of unusual colour in her cheeks, and an added light in her dark eyes, that gave a winsomeness to her beauty which it had not always. A cunningly bound spray of yellow-stamened lilies followed the curving line of her low-necked dress, ending in a cluster in her bosom ; the glossy little leaves of the smilax the florist had wreathed in with them stood sharply against the whiteness of her neck. Her hair was massed at the back of her head, simply and girlishly enough, and its fluffiness about her forehead made a sweet shadow above her eyes. She was in a little fever of expectation ; Janet had talked so much about this reception. Janet had told her that the real thing, the real English literary thing in numberless volumes, would be on view at Lady Halifax's. Miss Cardiff had mentiored this in their discussion of the Arcadia Club, at which institution she had scoft'ed so unbearably that Elfrida, while she cherished the memory of Georgiadi, had not mentioned it since. Perhaps, after all, she reflected, Janet was just a trifle blind where people were not i I 13^ A DAQGHTER OF TO-DAY. u i I'lllii hall-marked. It did not occur to her to consider how far she herself illustrated this theory. But as she went down Mrs. Jordan's narrow flights of stairs, covered with worn oil-cloth, she kissed her own soft arm for pure pleasure. "You are ravishing to-night," she told herself. Gclightly Ticke's door was open, and he was standing in it, picturesquely smoking a cigarette with the candle burning behind him, "just to see you pass," he informed her. Elfrida paused, and threw back her cloak. "How is it?" she asked, posing for him with its folds gathered in either hand. Ticke scanned her with leisurely appreciation. " It is exquisite," he articulated. Elfrida gave him a look that might have intoxi- cated nerves less accustomed to dramatic effects. " Then whistle me a cab," she said. Mr. Ticke whistled her a cab, and put her into it. There was the least pressure of his long fingers as he took her hand, and Elfrida forbade herself to resent it. She felt her own beauty so much that night that she could not complain of an enthusiasm for it in such a belle dme as Golightly. They went up to the drawing-room together, Elfrida and the Cardiffs, and Lady Halifax im- mediately introduced to Miss Bell a hollow-cheeked gentleman with a long grey beard and bushy eyebrows as a fellow-countryman. "You can compare your impressions of Hyde Park and St. Paul's," said Lady Halifax, "but don't call us 'Britishers.' It really isn't pretty of you." Elfrida discovered that the bearded gentleman was the principal of a college in Florida, and corresponded regularly al, '^' e time with the late Sir William. "It is to t J," said he ornately. A DAUGHTEll OF TO-DAY. ^2^7 *' that I owe the honour of joining this brilliant company to-night." He went on to state that ho was over there principally on account of his health ; acute dyspepsia he had, it seemed he'd got out of running order generally, regularly off the track. ** But I've just about concluded," he con+inued, with a pathetic twinkle under his bushy brows, ** that I might have a worse reason for going back. What do you think of the meals in Victoria's country. Miss Bell ? It seems to me sometimes that I'd give the whole British Museum for a piece of Johnny-cake." Elfrida reflected that this was not precisely what she expected to experience, and presently the hollow-cheeked Floridian was again at Lady Halifax's elbow for disposal, while the young lady whose appearance and nationality had given him so much room for hope, smilingly drifted away from him. The Carditfs were talking to a rosy, smooth-faced, round-waistcoated gentleman, just returned from Siberia, about the unfortunate com- bination of accidents by which he lost the mail train twice in three days, and Janet had just shaken hands with a short and cheerful looking lady astrologist. ** Behind that large person in the heliotrope brocade — she's the wife of the Daily Mercimj — there's a small sofa," Janet said, in an undertone. ** I don't think she'll occupy it; the brocade looks so much better standing. No ; there she goes ! Let us sit down." As they crossed the room Janet added, **In another minute we should have been shut up in a Russian prison. Daddy's incarcerated already. And the man told all he knew about them in the public prints a month ago ! " They sat down luxuriously together, and made ready, in their palm-shaded corner, to wreak the whole of their irresponsible youth upon Lady i3<^ A nAUGIITER OF TO-DAY. ill! Halifax's often venerable and always considerable guests. The warm atmosphere of the room had the perceptible charge of personalities. People in almost every part of it were trying to look uncon- scious as they pointed out other people. ** Tell me about everybody — everybody," said Elfrida. "H'm! I don't see anj'body that in anybody, at this moment. Oh, there's Sir Bradford Barker, llegard him well, for a brave soul is Sir Bradford, Frida mine ! " **A soldier? At this end of the century one can't feel an enthusiasm for killing." "Not in the least. A member of Parliament who writes verses, and won't be intimidated by Punch into not publishing them. And the man he is talking to has just done a history of the Semitic nations. He took me down to dinner last night, and we talked in the most intelligent manner about the various ways of preparing crabs. He liked them in five * styles.' I wouldn't subscribe to more than three. That little man with the orchid, that daddy has just seized, is the author of the last of the *Bulers of India' series. Sir Somebody Something, K.C.S.I. My unconscion- able humbug of a parent probably wants to get something approaching a fact out of him. Daddy's writing a thing for one of the reviews on the elective principle for India this week. He says he's the only writer on Indian subjects who isn't disqualified by having been there, and is con- sequently quite free of prejudice ! " "Ah," said Elfrida, "how banal! I thought you said there would be something real here — somebody in whose garment's hem there would be virtue ! " "And I suggest the dress-coat of the historian of the Semitic nations ! " Janet laughed. " Well, A DAUGIITEU OF TO-DAY. 139 if nearly all our poets arc dead, and our novelists arc too imin'opcr to be asked to evening parties, I can't help it, can I ? Here is Mr. Kendal, at all events ! " Kendal came up with his perfect manners, and immediately it seemed to Elfrida that their little group became distinct from the rest — more im- portant, more worthy of observation. Kendal never added anything to the unities of their con- versation when he joined these two, he seemed rather to break up what they had to say to each other and attract it to himself. He always gave an accent to the life and the energy of their talk, but he made them both self-conscious and wakeful — seemed to put them, as it were, upon their guard one against another, in a way which Janet found vaguely distressing. It was invariably as if Kendal turned their intercourse into a joust by his mere presence as spectator ; as if — Janet put it plainly to herself, reddening — they mutely asked him to bestow the wreath on one of them. She almost made up her mind to ask Elfrida where their understanding went to when John Kendal came up, but she had not found it possible yet. There was an embarrassing chance that Elfrida did not feel their change of attitude, which would entail nameless surmises. " You ought to be at work," Janet said severely to Kendal; "back at Barbizon or in the fields somewhere. It won't be always June." "Ah, would you banish him ! " Elfrida exclaimed daintily. " Surely Hyde Park is rustic enough — in June." Kendal smiled into her face. " It combines all the charm of the country " he began. " And the chic of the town," Elfrida finished for him gailv. " I know — I've seen the Boot Show!" i; 140 A DAUOHTEU OF TO-PAY. " Extremely frivolouH," Janet commented. ** Ah, now we are condemned ! " Elfrida answered, and for an instant it almost seemed as if it were ho. " Daddy wants you to go and paint straggling grey stone villages in Scotland now — straggling, climbing grey stone villages, with only a l)it of blue at the end of the 'Dead Wynd,' where it turns into the churchyard gate." ** How charming ! " Elfrida exclaimed. " I suppose he has been saturating himself with Barrie," Kendal said. ** If I could reproduce Barrie on canvas, I'd go — like a shot. By the way. Miss Bell, there's somebody you are interested in — do you see a middle-aged man, rather bald, thick-set, coming this way ? — George Jasper." "Beally!" Elfrida exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "Oh, thank you! The most consummate artist in human nature that the time has given," she added with intensity. *' There can bo no question ! Oh, I am so happy to have seen him ! " " I'm not altogether sure," Kendal began, and then he stopped, looking at Janet in astonished question. Elfrida had taken half a dozen steps into the middle of the room — steps so instinct with effect that already as many heads were turning to luok at her. Her eyes were large with excitement, her cheeks flushed, and she bent her head a little, almost as if to see nothing that might dissuade her from her purpose. The author of ;'The Alien," "A Moral Catas- trophe," *'Her Disciple," and a number of other volumes which cause envy and heart-burnings among publishers, in the course of his somewhat short-sighted progress across the room, paused with a confused effort to remember who this pretty girl might be who wanted to speak to him. Elfrida said, "Pardon me!" and Mr. Jasper A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 141 itod. answered, as if it stragpfliiig ?tra^«ling, a bit of ^vllel•o it nself with roprocluco By the interested ;her bald, il)er." to her isummato as given," an bo no jen him ! " egan, and istonished •zen steps itinct with turning to icitement, d a little, dissuade al Catas- • of other -burnings somewhat i, paused tiis pretty i I. Jasper instantly apprehended that there could ])0 no question of that, with her face. She was holding out her hand, and ho took it with absolute mystifica- tion. Elfrida had turned very palo, and a dozen people were listening. *' Give mo the right to say 1 have done this ! " she said, looking at him with shy bravery in her beautiful eyes. She half sank on one knee and lifted the hand that wrote " A Moral Catastrophe" to her lips. Mr. Jasper repossessed himself of it rather too hastily for dignity, and inwardly ho expressed his feelings by a puzzled oath. Outwardly ho looked somewhat ashamed of having inspired this young lady's enthusiasm, but he did his confused best, on the spur of the moment, to carry off the situation as one of the contingencies to which the semi- public hfe of a popular novelist is always subject. ''Keally you arc — much too good. I can't imagine — if the case had been reversed " Mr. Jasper foii id himself, accustomed as he was, to the exigencies of London drawing-rooms, awkwardly in want of words. And in the bow with which he further defined his discomfort, ho added to it by dropping the bit of stephanotis which he wore in his button-hole. Elfrida sprang to pick it up. *' Oh," she cried, "it's broken at the stem! See, you cannot wear it any more ! May I keep it ? " A deadly silence had been widening round them, and now the daughter of the historian of the Semitic races broke it by twittering into a laugh behind her fan. Janet met Kendal's eyes instinc- tively — he was burning red, und his manner was eloquent of his helplessnes.s. Angry with herself for having waited so long, Janet joined Elfrida just as the twitter made itself heard, and Mr. Jasper's face began to stifl'en with indignation. •' Ah, Miss Cardiff ! " he said with relief. *' How i 1 m .l,rl i ' 142 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. do vou do? The rooms are rather warm, don't you think?" " I want to introduce you to my Am — my very great friend, Miss Bell, Mr. Jasper," Janet said quickly, as conversation began to hum across the room again. Elfrida turned to her reproachfully. "If T had known it was at all possible that yen would do that,'' she said, "I might have — waited. But I did not know." People were still looking at tliem with curious attentiveness ; they were awkwardly solitary. Ken- dal, in his corner, was asking himself how she could have struck such a false note, and of all people, Jasper, whose polished work held no trace of his personality — whose pleasure it was to have no public entity whatever ! As Jasper moved off almost immediately, Kendal saw his tacit dis- comfort in the set of his shoulders, and so sure was he of Elfrida's embarrassment that he himself slipped away to avoid adding to it. *'lt was all wrong and ridiculous, and she was mad to do it," thought Janet an hour later as she drove home with her father. " But why need John Kendal have blushed for her ? " CHAPTER XVII. *' I AM sure you are enjoying it," said Elfrida. **Yes," Miss Kimpsey returned; "it's a great treat — it's a very great treat. Everything sur- passes my expectations; everything is older and blacker and more interesting than I looked for. And I must say we're getting over a great deal in the time. Yesterday afternoon we did the entire ~\ A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. H s tacit clis- Towcr. It did give one an idea ! But of course you know every stone in it by now ! " " I'm afraid I've not seen it," Elfrida confessed gravely. " I know it's shocking of me." *' You haven't visited the Tower ! Doesn't that show how benumbing opportunity is to the ener- gies ! Now, I dare say that I," Miss Kimpscy went on with gratification, " coming over with a party of tourists from our State, all bound to get London, and the cathedral towns, and the Lakes, and Scotland and Paris and Switzerland into the summer vacation — I presume I may have seen more of the London sights than you have. Miss Bell." As Miss Kimpsey spoke, she realized that she had had no intention of calling Elfrida " Miss Bell " when she saw her again, and wondered why she did it. ** But you ought to be fond of sight- seeing, too," she added, " with your artistic nature." Elfrida seemed to restrain a smile. *' I don't know that I am," she said. "I'm sorry that you didn't leave my mother so well as she ought to be. She hasn't mentioned it in her letters." In the course of time Miss Bell's correspondence with her parents had duly re-established itself. " She icoiddn't, Elf — Miss Bell. She was afraid of suggesting the obligation to come home to you. She said, with your artistic conscience, you couldn't come, and it would be inflicting un- necessary pain upon you. But her bronchitis was no light matter last February. She was real sick." *' My mother is always so considerate," Elfrida answered, reddening, with composed lips. " She is better now, I think you said ? ' ' "Oh yes, she's some better. I heard from her last week, and she says she doesn't know how to wait to see me back. That's on your account, of •I 44 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. •I course. Well, I can tell her you appear comfort- able " — Miss Kimpsey looked around — "if I can't tell her exactly when you'll be home." " That is so doubtful, just now " " They're introducing drawing from casts in the High School," Miss Kimpsey went on, with a note of urgency in her little twanging voice, " and Mrs. Bell told me I might just mention it to you. She thinks you could easily get taken on to teach it. I just dropped round to one or two of the principal trustees the day before I left, and they said you had only to ai)ply. It's seven hundred dollars a year." Elfrida's eyebrows contracted. " Thanks, very much ! It was extremely kind — to go to so much trouble. But I have decided that I am not meant to be an artist. Miss Kimpsey," Lhe said, with a self-contained smile. "I think T)"»y mother knows that. I — I don't much like talking about it. Do you find London confusing? I was dreadfully IDUzzled at first." " I would if I were alone ! I'd engage a special policeman — the policemen are polite, aren't they ? But we keep the party together you see, to econo- mize time, so none li us get lost. We all went down Cheapside this morning, and bought um- brellas — two and three apiece. This is the most reasonable place for umbrellas. But isn't it ridiculous to pay for apples by the pound, and then they're not worth eating ! This room does smell of tobacco ! I suppose the gentleman in the apart- ment below smokes a great deal ? " " I think he does. I'm so sorry. Let me open another window." " Oh, don't mind mc > I don't object to tobacco, except on board ship. But it must be bad to sleep in. ''Perhaps," said Elfrida, sweetly. "And have A DAUGHTER OP TO-DAY. H5 sai* comfort- "if I can't sasts in the with a note " and Mrs. ) you. She to teach it. be principal ey said you id dollars a hanks, very to so much 1 not meant said, with a )ther knows lOut it. Do I dreadfully a special ren't they? e, to econo- Ve all went )ought um- is the most t isn't it df and then does smell the apart- it me open I to tobacco, )ad to sleep And have you no more news from home for me. Miss Kimpsey?" " I don't know as I have. You've heard of the Rev. Mr. Snider's second marria<]:e to Mrs. Abra- ham Peeley, of course. There's a great deal of feeling about it in Sparta — the first Mrs. Snider was so popular, y^^u know — and it isn't a full year. People say it isn't the marriage they object to, under such circumstances ; it's — all that goes be- fore," said Miss Kimpsey with decorous repression ; and Elfrida burst into a peal of laughter. *' Really," she sobbed, **it's too delicious ! Yr. and Mrs. Snider ! Do you think people woo with improper warmth — at that age. Miss Kimpsey? " '* I don't know anything about it," Miss Kimp- sey declared, with literal truth. *'I suppose such things justify themselves somehow, especially when it's a clergyman. And of course you know about your mother's idea of coming over here to settle ? " " No ! " said Elfrida, arrested. " She hasn't mentioned it. Do they talk of it seriously ? " ** I don't know about seriously, Mr. Bell doesn't seem as if he could make up his mind. He's so fond of Sparta, you know. But Mrs. Bell is just wild to come. She thinks, of course, of having you to live with them again ; and then she says that on their present income You will excuse my referring to your parents' reduced circum- stances. Miss Bell? " " Please go on." ** Your mother considers that Mr. Bell's means would go further in England than America. She asked me to make inquiries, and I must say, judging from the price of umbrellas and woollen goods, I think they would." Elfrida was silent for a moment, looking stead- fastly at the possibiUty Miss Kimpsey had do- ve! ped. N :! 146 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 2MI toil) .^M. ! i . ii " What a complication ! " she said half to her- self; and then observing Miss Kimpsey's look of astonishment — "I had no idea of that," she repeated. " I wonder that they have not men- tioned it." "Well, then," said Miss Kimpsey, with sudden compunction, *' I presume they wanted to surprise you ! And I've gone and spoiled it." '* To surprise me," Elfrida repeated in her ab- sorption. '* Oh yes ! very likely ! " Inwardly she saw her garret — the garret that so exhaled her, where she had tasted success and knew a happiness that never altogether failed — vanish into a snug cottage in Hampstead or Sur- biton. She saw the ruin of her independence, of her delicious solitariness, of the life that began and ended in her sense of the strange and the beautiful and the grotesque in a world of curious slaveries of which it suited her to be an alien spectator, amused and free. She foresaw long conflicts and dis- cussions, pryings which she could not prevent, justifications which would be forced upon her, obligations which she must not refuse. More intolerable still, she saw herself in the rule of family idol, the household happiness hinging on her moods, the question of her health, her work, her pleasure, being the eternally chief one. Miss Kimpsey talked on about other things, Windsor Castle, the Abbey, the Queen's stables ; and Elfrida made occasional replies, politely vague. She was mechanically twisting the little gold hoop on her wrist, and thinking of the artistic sufferings of a family idol. Obviously the only thing was to destroy the prospective shrine. ** We don't find board as cheap as we expected," Miss Kimpsey was saying. " Living — that is, food — is very expensive," Elfrida replied quickly ; "a good beafsteak, for A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 147 instance, costs three francs — I mean two and five- pence a j)ound.'* **I can't think in shillings!" Miss Kimpsey interposed plaintively. "And about this idea my people have of coming over here — I've been living in London five months now, and I can't quite see your grounds for think- ing it cheaper than Sparta, Miss Kimpsey." " Of course you have had time to judge of it." **Yes. On the whole, I think they would find it more expensive and much less satisfaetoiy. They would miss their friends, and their places in the little world over there — my mother, I know, attaches a good deal of importance to that. They would have to live very moderately in a suburb, and all the nice suburbs have their social relations in town. They wouldn't take the slightest interest in English institutions — my father is too good a citizen to make a good subject — and they would find a great many English ideas very — trying. The only Americans who are happy in England are the millionaires," Elfrida added. "I mean the millionaires who are not too sensitive." **Well now you have got as sensitive a nature as I know, Miss Bell, and you don't appear to be miserable ovev here." "I?*' Elfrida frowned just perceptibly. This little creature, who once corrected the punctuation of her essays, and gave her bad marks for spelling, was too intolerably personal. " We won't consider my case, if you please. Perhaps I am not a good American." • ** Mrs. Bell seems to think she would enjoy the atmosphere of the past in London." "It's a fatal atmosphere for asthma. Please impress that upon my people. Miss Kimpsey. There would be no justification in letting my mother believe she could be comfortable here. She I 1 t i •I ■I ! \i\ I4nc- times to the verge of approval, to the edge o^ liking ; and when he foui.d that he could not take the further step, he told himself impatiently that it was not a case for anything so ordinary as approval, or anything so personal as liking. It was a matter of observation, enjoyment, stimulus. He availed himself of these abstractions with a candour that was the more open for not bemg complicated with any less hardy motive. He had long ago decided that relations of sentiment with Elfrida would require a temperament quite different from that of any man he knew. It was entirely otherwise with Janet Cardiff, and Kendal smiled as he thought of the feminine variation the two girls illustrated. He had a distinct recollection of one crisp October afternoon before he went to Paris, as they walked home together under the browning curling leaves and past the Serpentine, when he had found that the old charm of Janet's grey eyes was changing to a new one. He re- membered the pleasure he had felt in dallying with the thought of making them lustrous one day with tenderness for himself. It had paled since then, there had been so many other things ; but still, they were dear, honest eyes and Kendal never brought his reverie to a conclusion under any circumstances whatever. CHAPTER XIX. I HAVE mentioned that Miss Bell had looked con- siderations of sentiment very full in the face, at an age when she might have been expected to be blushing and quivering before them with downcast countenance. She had arrived at conclusions 154 A DAUGHTER OF TO-J)AY. "Mil ;3iiifi J! 1 about them, conclusions of philosophic indifference and some contempt. She had since frequently talked about them to Janet Cardiff with curious disregard of time and circumstance, mentioning her opinion in a Strand omnibus, for instance, that the only dignity attaching to love as between a man and a woman was that of an artistic idea. Janet had found Elfrida possessed of so savage a literalism in this regard that it was only in the most hardily adventurous of the moods of in- vestigation her friend inspired that she cared to combat her here. It was not, Janet told herself, that she was afraid to face the truth in any degree of nakedness ; but she rose in hot inward rebellion against Elfrida's borrow* 1 psychological cynicisms — they were not the truth, Tolstoi had not all the facts, perhaps from pure Muscovite inability to comprehend them all. The spirituality of love might be a Western product — she was half inclined to think it was — but at all events it existed ; and it was wanton to leave out of consideration a thing that njade all the difference. Moreover if these things ought to be probed — and Janet was not of serious opinion that they ought to be — for her part she preferred to obtain advices thereon from between admissible and respectable book-covers. It hurt her to hear them drop from Elfrida's lips — lips so plainly meant for all tenderness. Janet had an instinct of helpless anger when she heard them — the woman in her rose in protest, less on behalf of her sex than on behalf of Elfrida her- self, who seemed 20 blind, so willing to revile, so anxious to reject. " Do you really hope you will marry ? " Elfrida had asiied her once ; and Janet had answered candidly, "Of course I do — and I want to die a grandmother too." ** Vraimcnt ! " exclaimed Miss Bell, ironically, with a little shudder of disgust, " I hope you may ! " A DAUGIITEU OF TO-DAY. 1^ OD h a little That was in the very beginning of their friend- ship however, and so vital a subject could not remain outside the relations which established themselves more and more intimately between them as the days went on. Janet began to find herself constantly in the presence of a tempta- tion to bring the matter home to Elfrida personally in one way or another, as young women commonly do with other young women who are obstinately unorthodox in these things — to say to hor in effect, ** Your turn will come when he comes ! These pseudo-philosophies will vanish when Iw looks at them — like snow in spring. You will succumb — you will succumb ! " But she never did. Some- thing in Elfrida's attitude forbade it. Iler opinions were not vagaries, and she held them, so far as they had a personal application, haughtily. Janet felt and disliked the tacit limitation, and preferred to avoid the clash of their opinions when she could. Besides, her own ideas upon the subject had latterly retired irretrievably from the light of discussion. She had one day found it necessary to lock the door of her soul upon them; in the new knowledge that had taken sweet possession of her, she recognized that they were no longer theoretical — they must be put away. She chal- lenged herself to sit in a jury upon Love, and found herself disqualified. The discovery had no remarkable effect upon Janet. She sometimes wasted an hour, pen in hand, in inconsequent reverie, and worked till midnight to make up ; and she took a great liking for impersonal conversations with Miss Halifax about Kendal's pictures, methods, and meanings. She found dining in Royal Geographical circles less of a bore than usual, and deliberately laid herself out to talk well. She looked in the glass sometimes at a little vertical line that seemed to 156 A DAUGHTER OF VO-DAY. be coming at tlie corners of her mouth, and wondered whether at twenty-four one might expect t'le first indication of approaching old-maidenhood. When she was paler than usual, ' he reflected that the season was taking a good deal out of her. She was bravely and rigidly commonplace "vith Kendal, who told her that she ought to drop it and go out of town — she was not looking well. She drew closer to her father ; and at the ^ame time armed her secret against him at all points. Janet would have had any one know rather than he. She felt that it implied almost a breach of faith, of com- radeship, to say nothing of the complication of her dignity, which she wanted upheld in his eyes before all others. In reality, she made him more the sovereign of her affections and the censor of her relations than nature designed Lawrence Cardiff to be in the parental connection. It gave him great pleasure that he could make his daughter a friend, and t^ccord her the independence of a friend ; it was a satisfaction to him that she was not obtrusively filial. Her feeling for Kendal under the circumstances would have hurt him if he had known of it, but only through his sym- pathy and his affection ; he w^as unacquainted with the jealousy of a father. But in Janet's eyes they made their little world together, indispensable to each other as its imaginary hemispheres. She had a quiet pain, in the infrequent moments when she allowed herself the full realization of her love for Kendal, in the knowledge that she of her own motion had disturbed its unities and its ascendencies. Since that evening at Lady Halifax's, when Janet saw John Kendal reddening so unaccountably, she had folt singularly more tolerant of Elfrida's theories. She combated them as vigorously as ever, but she lost her dishke to discussing tliem. As it became more and more obvious tliat Kendal A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 157 outli, and ght expect lidenhoocl. lected that her. She bh Kendal, md go out She drew me armed met would , She felt h, of com- lication of n his eyes him more censor of Lawrence . It gave 8 daughter lence of a it she was Dr Kendal art him if his sym- icquainted .net's eyes ispensable 3res. She ents when ler love for wn motion acies. ^heu Janet tably, she Elfrida's irously as ing them, at Ivendal found in Elfrida a reward for the considerable amount of time he spent in her society, Janet arrived at the point of encouraging her heresies, especially with their personal application. She took sweet comfort in them ; she hoped they would not change, and she was too honest to disguise to herself the reason. If Elfrida cared for him, Janet assured herself, the case would be entirely different ; she would stamp out her own feeling, without mercy, to the tiniest spark. She would be glad, in time, to have crushed it for Elfrida, though it did seem that it would be more easily done for a stranger, somebody she wouldn't have to know afterwards. But if Elfrida didn't care, as a matter of principle Janet was unable to see the least harm in making her say so as often as possible. They were talking together in the Cardiffs' library late one June afternoon, when it seemed to Janet that the crisis came, that she could never again speak of such matters to Elfrida without betraying her- self. Things were growing dim about the room ; the trees stood in dusky groups in the square out- side. There was the white glimmer of the tea- things between them, and just light enough to define the shadows round the other girl's face, and write upon it the difference it bore, in Janet's eyes, to every other face. " Oh," Elfrida was saying, " it does make life more interesting, I admit — up to a certain point. And I suppose it is to be condoned, from the point of view of the species ! Whoever started us, and wants us to go on, excuses marriage, I suppose. And, of course, the men are not aft'ected by it. But for women it is degrading — horrible ! especially for women like you and me, to whom lif«' may mean something else. Fancy being the author of babies, when one could be the author of books ! Don't tell me you'd rather ! " 158 A DAUGHTEn OP TO-DAY. II: -^ !»;. M. " I ! " said Junet. " Oh, I'm out of it ! But I approve of the principle." ** Besides, the commonplaceness, the eternal routine, the being tied together, the — the domestic virtues ! It must be death, absolute death, to any fineness of nature. No," Elfrida went on decisively, " people with anything in tLem that is v'orth saving may love as much as they feel dis^ jsed, but they ought to keep their freedom. And some of them do nowadays." *' Do you mean," said Janet slowly, "that they dispense with the ceremony?" " They dispense with the condition. They — they don't go so far." "I thought you didn't believe in Platonics," Janet answered, witli wilful misunderstanding. ** You know I don't believe in them — any more," Elfrida added lightly, " than I believe in this exaltation you impute to the race of a passion it shares with — with the moUusks. It's pure self- flattery." There was a moment's silence. Elfrida clasped her hands behind her head and turned her face toward the window, so that all the light that came through was softly gathered in it. Janet felt the girl's beauty as if it were a burden, pressing with literal physical weight upon her heart. She made a futile effort to lift it with words. "Elfrida," she said, "you are beautiful to — to hurt, to-night. Why has nobody ever painted a creature like you ? " It was as if she touched an inner spring of the girl's nature, touched it electrically. Elfrida leaned forward consciously, with shining eyes. "Truly, am I, Janetta? Ah— to-night ! Well, yes, perhaps to-night I am. It is an effect of chiaroscuro. But what about always — what about generally, Janetta ? I have such horrid doubts. A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 159 If it weren't for my nose I should be satisfied — yes, I think I should be satisfied. But I can't deceive myself about my nose, Janetta, — it's thick." "It isn't a particularly spiritually-minded nose," Janet laughed; "but console yourself — it's thoughtful." Elfrida put her elbows on her knees, and framed her face with the palms of her hands. "If I am beautiful to-night you ought to love me. Do you love me, Janetta? really love me? Could you imagine," she went on, with a whimsical, spoiled shake of her head, " any one else doing it ? " Janetta's fingers closed tightly on the arm of her chair. Was it coming already, then ? " Yes," she said slowly, " I could imagine it well." "More than one?" Elfrida insisted prettily. " More than two or three ? A dozen, perhaps ? " " Quite a dozen," Janet smiled. " Is that to be the limit of your heartless proceedings ? " " I don't know how soon one would grow tired of it. Maybe in three or four years. But for now — it is very amusing." " Playing with fire ? " " Bah ! " Elfrida returned, going back to her other mood, " I'm not inflammable. But to that extent, if you like, I value what you and the poets are pleased to call love. It's part of the game — one might as well play it all ! It's splendid to win — anything. It's a kind of success." " Oh, I know," she went on, after an instant. " I have done it before — I shall do it again, often ! It is worth doing — to sit within three feet of a human being who would give all he possesses just to touch your hand — and to tacitly dare him to do it." " Stop, Elfrida ! " " Shan't stop, my dear. Not only to be able I" If r. I 60 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. to chec^i any such demonstration yourself, with a movement, a glance, a turn of your head ; but without even a sign, to make your would-bo adorer check it himself, — and to feel as still and calm, and superior to it all! Is that nothing to you ? " •* It's loss than nothing. It's hideous/' ** I consider it a compensation vested in the few for the wrongs of the many," Elfrida replied gaily. "And I mean to store up all the com- pensation in my proper person that I can." " I believe you have had more than your share already," Janet cried. "Oh no, a little, only a little. Hardly any- thing here — people fall in love in England in such a mathematical way ! But there is a callow artist on the A(/e : and Golightly Ticke has become quite mad lately; and Solomon, I mean Mr. Hattray, will propose next week — he thinks I won't dare to refuse the sub-editor ! How I shall laugh at him ! Afterwards, if he gives me any trouble, I shall threaten to write up the interview for the Pictorial Neus. On the whole, though, I dare say I'd better not suggest such a thing — he would want it for the Afje. He is equal to any personal sacrifice for the Age," ** Is that all ? " asked Janet, turning away her head. " You are thinking of John Kendal ! Ah, there it becomes exciting. From what you see, Janetta mia, what should you think ? Myself, I don't quite know. Don't you find him rather — a good deal — interested ? " Janet had an impulse of thankfulness for the growing darkness. " I — I see him so seldom," she said. Oh, it was the last time, the very last time she would let Elfrida talk like this. '* Well, I think so," Elfrida went on coolly. A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. l6l *'Hc fancies be finds me curious, orij^'inal, a type — ^.just now. I dare say lie thinks lie takes an anthropological pleasure in my society ! But in the beginning it is all the same thing, my dear, and in the end it will be all the same thing. This delicious Loti"^ — and she picked up ''Aziado* — "what an anthropologist he is — with a feminine bias ! " Janet was tongue-tied. She struggled with her- self for an instant, and then — " I uish you'd stay and dine," she said desperately. "How thoughtless of me!" Elfrida replied, jumping up. "You ought to be dressing, dear. No, I can't ; I've got to sup with some ladies of the Alhambra to-night it will make such lovely copy. But I'll go now, this very instant." Halfway downstairs, Janet, in a passion of help- less tears, heard Elfrida's footsteps pause and turn. She stepped swiftly into her own room, and locked the door. The footsteps came tripping back into the library, and then a tap sounded on Janet's door. Outside Elfrida's voice said plaintively — "1 had to come back. , Do you love me? — are you quite sure you love me ? " "You humbug!" Janet called from within, steadying her voice with an effort, " I'm not at all sure. I'll tell you to-morrow." "But you do," cried Elfrida, departing. "I know you do." M 1 62 A DAUGllTEll OF TO-DAY. ten fin. i' CIIArTEll XX. July tliickencd down upon London. The society papers announced that, with the exception of the few unfortunate gentlemen who were compelled to stay and look after their constituents' interests at Westminster, " everybody " had gone out of town, and filled up yawning columns with detailed information as to everybody's destination. To an experienced eye, with the point of vi^w of the top of an Oxbridge Road omnibus, for instance, it might not appear that London had diminished more than to the extent of a few powdered footmen on carriage-boxes ; but the census of the London world is, after all, not to be taken from the top of an Uxbridge Road omnibus. London teemed emptily; the tall houses in the narrow lanes of Mayfair slept standing; the sunlight filtered through a depressing haze, and stood still in the streets for hours together. In the Park the policemen wooed the nursery iUaids free from the embarrassing smiling scrutiny of people to whom this serious preoccupation is a diversion. The main thoroughfares were full of "summer sales," St. Paul's echoed to admiring Trans- atlantic criticism, and the Bloomsbury boarding- houses to voluble Transatlantic complaint. The Halifaxes were at Brighton ; Lady Halifax giving musical teas, Miss Halifax painting marine views in a little book. Miss Halifax called them "impressions," and always distributed them at the musical teas. The Cardiffs had gone to Scotland for golf, and later for grouse ; Janet was almost as expert on the links as her father, and on very familiar terms with a certain High- land moor and one Donald Macleod. Thoy had A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 163 c society m of tbe ompelled interests e out of 1 detailed I. To an if the top jtance, it iminished 1 footmen 3 London 1 the top a teemed r lanes of k filtered till in the Park the ree from people to diversion, summer g Trans- boarding- t. y Halifax ig marine lied them them at gone to c ; Janet er father, lin High- Thoy had htid every compulsion upon Elfrida to go with them in vain ; the girl's sensitiveness on the point of money obligations was intense, and Janet fail<3d to measure it accurately when she allowed hersolf to feel hurt that their relations did not preclude the necessity for taking any thought as to who paid. Elfrida stayed, however, in her by-way of Fleet Street, and did a little bit of excellent work fuv the Illnstratrd Af/c every day. If it had not been for the editor-in-chief, Eattray would have extended her scope on the paper; but the editor-in-chief said no. Miss Bell was dangerous ; there was no telling what she might bo up to if they gave her the reins. She went very well, but she was all the better for the severest kind of a bit. So Miss Bell wrote about colonial exhibitions and popular spectacles and country outings for babies of the slums, and longed for a fairer field. As midsummer came on there arrived a dearth in these objects of orthodox interest, and Rattray told her she might submit " anything on the nail " that occurred to her, in addition to such work as the office could give her to do. Then, in spite of the editor-in-chief, an odd, unconventional bit of writing crept now and then into the A(/c — an interview with some eccentric notability which read like a page from Gyp, a bit of pathos i)icke(l out of the common streets, a fragment of charac'er- drawing which smiled visibly and talked audibly. Elfrida, in her garret, drew a joy from these things. She cut them out, and read them over and over again, and put them sacredly away with Nudie's letters and a manuscript poem of a certain Bruynotin's, and a scrawl from one Ilakkoff with a vigorous sketch of herself from memory, in pen and ink, in the corner ol the page, in the little eastern-smelling wooden box, which seemed to her I I, II ii 164 A DAUGHTEK OP TO-DAY. to represent the core of her existence. They quickened her pulHC, they gave her a curious uplifted happiness that took absohitely no account of any other circumstance. There were days when Mrs. Jordan had real twinges of conscience about the quality of Miss JicU's steak. "But there," Mrs. Jordan would soothe herself, ** I might bring her the best sulline, and she wouldn't know no difference ! " In other practical respects the girl was equally indifferent. Her clotl"^ 4 were shabby, and she did not seem to i}:ii\k ;i replacing them. Mrs. Jordan made in'epL->v. i.' charges for candles, and she paid them ' 'Ihorf question. She tipped people who did little services for her with a kind of royal delicacy. The girl whu scrubbed the landings worshipped her, and the boy who came every day for her copy once brought her a resplendent "button-hole," consisting of two pink rosebuds and a scarlet geranium, tendering it with a shy lie to the effect that he had found it in the street. She went alone now and again to the op ^ra, taking an obscure place ; and she lived a good deal among the foreign art exhibitions of Bond Street. Once she bought an etching, and brought it home under her arm. That kept her poor for a month, though she would have been less aware of it if she had not, before the month was out, wanted to buy another. A great Parisian actress had made her yearly visit to London in June, and Elfrida, conjuring with the name of the Illustrated Age, won an appointment from her. The artiste stayed only a fortnight — she declared that one half of an English audience came to see her because it was proper and the other because it was sinful, and she found it insupportable, — and in that time she asked Elfrida three times to pay her morning visits, when she appeared in her dressing-gown, A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 165 little unconventional visits ** pour bavarder." When Miss Bell lacked entertainment during the weeks that followed, she thought of these visits, and little smiles chased each other round the corners of her mouth. She wrote to Janet, when she was in the mood, delicious scraps of letters, broad-margined, fantastic, each so far as charm went a little literary gem disguised in wilfulness, in a picture, in .a diamond-cut cynicism that shone sharper and clearer for the dainty affectation of its setting. When she was not in the mood she did not write at all. With an instinctive recognition of the demands of any relation such as she felt her friendship with Janet Cardiff to be, jt "imply refrained from imposing upon her ar'tn? ' that savoured of dullness or commonplacen.ssc. bo that sometimes she ^vrote three or four tiiiiC;^ ^:i a week, and sometimes not at all for a fortnight ; uometimes covered pages, and sometimes sent '^ , lines and a row of asterisks. There was a fancifulness in the hour as well, that usually made itself felt all through the letter: it was rainy twilight in her garret, or a grey widencss was creeping up behind St. Paul's which meant that it was morning. To what she herself was actually doing, or to any material fact about her, they made the very slightest reference. Janet, in Scotland, perceived half of this, and felt aggrieved on the score of the other half. She wished more often than she said she did, that Elfrida were a little more human, that she had a more appreciative understanding of the warm value of everyday matter between people who were interested in one another. The subtle imprisoned soul in Elfrida's letters always spoke to hers, but Janet never received so artistic a missive of three lines that she did not wish it were longer, and she had no fund of confidence to diaw I I ^ ■tri>n 1 66 A DAUGHTER OF TODAY. on to meet her friend's incompreliensiMo spaces of niloncc. To cover her real sorcncHH she Hcoldeil, chaffed hrusquely, affected lofty sarcasms. ** Twelve days ago," she wrote, "you mentioned casually that you were threatened with pneumonia ; your communication of to-day you devote to proving that Hector Malut is a carpenter. 1 agree with you with reservations, hut the sequence worries mo. In the mean time, have you had the l)neumonia ? " Her own letters were long and gossiping, full of the scent of the heather and the eccentricities of ])()nald Macleod ; and she wrote them regularly twice a week, using rainy afternoons for tlie purpose, and every inch of the paper at her disposal. Elfrida put a very few of them into tlie wooden hox, just as she would have emhalmed, if she could, a very few of the half-hours they hud spent together. CHAPTER XXI. John Kendal turned the key upon his dusty work- room in Bryanston Street among the first of those who, according to the papers, depopulated London in July. Ho had an old engagement to keep, which took him with Carew of the Dial and Limley of the Civil Service to explore and fish in the Norwegian fjords. The project matured suddenly, and he left town without seeing anyhody — a necessity which disturbed him a number of times on the voyage. He wrote a hasty line to Janet, returning a borrowed book, and sent a trivial message to Elfrida, whom he knew to be spending a few days in Kensington Square at the time. Janet delivered it with an intensity of quiet A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 167 ploasnro whicli she showed extraordinary skill in (•onccalin«^. " May I ask you to say to Miss licll," Rccmcd to hor to be cloqu iit of many thinjjjs. Sho looked at Elfrida with inquiry, in spite of herself, when she gave the message, but Elfrida received it with a nod and a smile c" perfect indifference. "It is because she does not care — does not care an iota,*' Janet told herself; and all that day it seemed to her that Klfrida's personality was inexhaustibly delightful. Afterwards, however, one or two letters found their way into the ssindal-wood box, bearing the Norwegian post-mark. They came seldomer than Elfrida expected. **/'.';//////" sho said when the iirst arrived, and she felt her pulse beat a little faster as she opened it. She read it eagerly with serious lips, thinking how fine he was, and with what exquisite force he brought himself to her as he wrote. ** I must be a very exceptionable person," she said in her reverie afterwards, "to have such things written to me! I must — / must!'' Then, as she put the letter away, she reilected that she couldn't amuse herself with Kendal without treachery to their artistic relation- ship; there would be somehow an outrage in it. And she would not amuse herself with him ; she woiiid sacrifice that, and be quite frank and simple always. So that when it came to pass — here Elfrida retired into a lower depth of consciousness — there would be only a little pity and a little pain and no reproach or regret. There was a delay in the arrival of the next letter, which Elfrida felt to be unaccountable — a delay of nearly three weeks. She took it with an odd rush of feeling from the hand of the house- maid who brought it up, and locked herself in alone with it. A few da^s later, driving through Brjanstou 1 i 1 4 I 5 t » i i6Hl reached him by post in the afternoon without an accompanying word ; the exquisite self-conscious manuscript seemed to breathe a su])dued ( .fiance at him, with the merest ghost of a perfume that Cardiff' liked better. Once or twice he hold the pages closer to his face to catch it inoro perfectly. Janet had not mentioned the nintttr to him again ; indeed, she had hardly tbo.ight of it. Jfer whole nature was absorbed in her light ^ ith herself, in the struggle for self- control, which had ceased to come to the surface of her life at intervals, and was now constant and supremo with her. Kendal had made it harder for her lately by continually talking of Elfrida. IIo brought his interest in her to Janet to discuss, as he naturally brought everything that touched him to her, and Janet, believing it to bo a lover's pleasure, could not Iforbid him. When he criticized A DAUGUTKll OF TO-DAY. ^11 tation ! If deserves to ; the appeal- you with it ocl night ! " k. ''Ahout over him. uldy dear — nean? " T laid down ely for half I'cd at leust with i)roper it the super- 11 the fiamo alternately that cven- 1 hy post in \ word ; the seemed to the merest tter. Once his face to mentioned had hardly fil)sorhed in for self- the surface nstant and harder for frida. Ho discuss, as uchcd him a lover's e criticized El frida, Tanet fancied it was to hear her warm defence, which grew oddly reckless in her anxiety to hide the bitterness that tinged it. "Otherwise," she permitted herself to reflect, "he is curiously just in his analysis of her — for a man," and hated the thought for its touch of disloyalty. Knowing Elfrida as she thought she knew her, Kendal's talk wounded her once for herself and twice for him. lie was going on blindly, coniidently, trusting, Janet thought bitterly, to his own Hweetni»ss of nature, to his comeliness and the iinenes.s of his sympathies — who had ever refused him anything yet? — and only to his hurt, to his repulse, from the point of view of scntimoul, to his ruin ! For it did not seem possibh; to Jaiu t that a. hopeless passion for a being like Kl frida Jiell could result in anything but collapse. Wlien- evi'r he came to Kensington Scpiare — and lu; came often — she went down to meet him with a (puiking heart, and sought his face nervously for the haggard, broken look which si. »r.id mean that ho had asked Elfrida to marry hini and been artistically refused. Always she looked in vain. Indeed, Kendal's spirits were so uniformly like a schoolboy's that once or twice she asked herself, with sudden terror, whether IClfrida had deceived her —whether it might not hi; otherwise bctwcrn them recognizing then, with infinite bmuiliatioii, how much worse that would be. She took to working extravagantly hai'd, and I'ilfritla noticed with ('istinct pleasure how nuich warmer her manner had grown, and in how many pretty ways she showed her enthusiasm. Janet was such a conciuest ! Once, when Kendal seemed to Janet on the point of asking her what she thought of his chances, she went to a Horist's in the Jligli, and sent I'Mfrida a pot of snowy chrysanthemums. N 5 1 i 1 \ \ \ % \ ■ 178 A DAUOHTEU OP TO-DAY. After which she allowed herself to refrain from Becing her for a week. Her talk with her father ahout helping Elfrida to i^lace her work with the magazines had heen one of the constant impulseH hy which she tried to compensate her friend, as it were, for the amount of suffering that young woman was inflicting upon her. She would have found a difficulty in explaining it more intelligibly than that. As ho settled together the pages of Miss Bell's article on ** The Nemesis of Komanticism," and laid them on the table, Lawrence Cardiff thought of it with sincere regret. "It is hopeless — hopeless," he said to himself. " It must be rewritten from end to end. I suppose she must do it herself," he added with a smile that he drew from some memory of her, and he pulled writing materials towards him to tell her so. lie-reading his brief note, he frowned, hesitated, and tore it up. The next followed it into the waste-paper basket. The third gave Elfrida to understand that in Mr. Cardiff's opinion the article was a little unl)alanced — she would remember her demand that he should be absolutely frank. She had made some delightful points, but there was a hick of plan and symmetry. If she would give him the opportunity, ho would be very happy to go over it with her, and possibly she would make a few changes. More than this Cardiff could not iudiico himsulf to say. And he would await her answer before sending her article back to her. It came next day, and in response to it Mr. Cardiff' found himself walking, with singular light- ness of step, toward Fleet Street in the afternoon, with Elfrida's manuscript in his pocket. Buddha smiled more inscrutably than ever as they went over it together, while tlie water hissed in the samovar in tlie corner, and little blue ffames cfrain from 1 her father »rk with the lit impulses sr friend, as that yomig woukl have intelligibly Miss Bell's icism," and •ditf thought I to himself. I. I suppose a smile that id ho pulled tell her so. d, hesitated, it into the Q Elfrida to )n the article member her frank. She there was a would give ry happy to would make if could not d await her to her. se to it Mr. ngular light - le afternoon, et. Jiudclha tliey went issed in tliu blue flames A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 1/9 chased themselves in and out of the anthracite in the grate, and the queer Orientalism of the little room made its picturesque appeal to Cardill's senses. He had never been there befor(\ From b print it, vet ho sincrrcly hoped the editor of tlio Lnfttlon Ma;iazinr would prove himself Hiich an hhs. J ft! Rclected the London Matiazinr hccauRe it seemed to him that th(! quality of its matter had lately heen slightly deteriorating. A few days later, when ho dropped in at the otlicc, impatient at tho delay, to ask the fate of the article, he was distinctly disappointed to find that the editor had failed to approach it in t\w character ho had mentally assigned to him. That gentleman took the manuscript out of the left-hand drawer of his writing-table, and ihigered the pages over with a kind of dis])araging consideration before handing it back. •' I'm sorry, CardilT, but wc can't do anything with this, I'm afraid. AVo have — we have one or two things covering the same ground already in hand." And ho looked at his visitor with some curiosity. It was a (pieer article to have come through Lawrence CarditY. Cardiir resented the look more than the article. "It's of no consequence, thanks," he said dryly. •' Very good of you to look at it. But you print u great deal worse stuff, you know." His private rellection was different, however, and led him to devote the following evening to nuiking certain additions to the sense and altera- tions in tho style of Elfrida's views on ** The Nemesis of llonuinticism," which enabled him to say, at about one o'clock in tho morning, '* Kniln ! it is passable ! " He took it to Klfrida on his way from his lecture next day. She met him at the door of her attic with expectant eyes— she was certain of success. "Have they taken it?" she cried. "Tell mo quick — quick ! " When he said "No" — the editor of the London Mwfaz'inc had shown himself an idiot ; he was very A DAUOUTKll (jF TU1»AV. iSl alitor of tlio Hiich an ass. IRC it Kccmed r liad lately (lavs later, mpaticnt at ido, lie was ) editor had iter ho had tleman took rawer of his over with a ore handing do anything' have one or I already in L' with some have come the artiele. said drvly. t you print t, however, evening to and altera- li on "The )led him to ig, " Kui'ut ! on his way him at tiie 8— she was sorry, hut they would try aj^ain— he thought she was going to cry. But her face c anged as ho went on, telling her frankly what he thought, and showing her wluit ho had done. " I've only improved it for the henefit of the IMiilistines," he said apologetically. " I hope you will forgive me." "And now," she said at last, with a little hard air, " what do you propose ? " "I propose that if you approve these trilhiig alterations, we send the article to the lirihsk Iiii'h'ir. And thc^y are certain to taki' it." Elfrida held out her hand for the manuscript, and ho gave it to h.er. She looked at eviry i)jigo again. It was at least half rewritten in Carditis small cramped hand. "Thank-vou," she said slowlv, " thank-vou— vtry much ! I have learned a great deal, I tliink, from what you have hecn kind enough to tell uw and to write here. But this, of course, so far as I am concerned in it, is a failure " •* Oh no ! " he protested, "An utter failure," she went on, unnoticingly, "and it has served its purpose. There!" she cried with sudden passion, and in an instant the manuscript was (laming in the grate. " riease— please go away! " she sobhed, leaning against the mantel in a sudden hetrayal of tejirs, and Cardiff, resisting the temptation to take her in his arms and hid her be comforted, went. I (< 'V Tell mo the London le was verv ^^v '^^.'<^. ^ .0^, \t^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) A #y^ ^.4i, M/.^ ^^^J^ h ^^^ 4 ^ ^ y. U.A % 1.0 I.I |4S ■10 2.0 Ul 114 11.6 HiotDgraphic _,Sciences Corporation \ <^ sr :\ \ 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 'v- .5i' < '^ u. l82 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. Vi m. CHAPTER XXIII. Mn, Rat'ii^ay's proposal occurred as soon after the close of the season as he was able to find time to devote the amount of attention to it which he felt it required. He put it off deliberate!}^ till then, fearing that it might entail a degree of mental agitation on his part that would have an un- desirable reflex action upon the paper. Mr. Battray had never been really attracted toward matrimony before, although he had taken, in a discussion in the columns of the Ar/e upon the careworn query **Is Marriage a Failure?" a vigorous negative side, under various pen-names which argued not only inclination but experience. He felt, therefore, that he could not possibly pre- dicate anything of himself uncler the circum- stances, and that it would be distinctly the part of wisdom to wait until there was less going on. Mr. Rattray had an indefinite idea that in case of a rejection he might find it necessary to go out of town for some weeks to pull himself together again — it was the traditional course, — and if such an exigency occurred before July, the office would go to pieces under the pressure of events. So he waited, becoming every day more enthusiastically aware of the great advantage of having Miss Bell permanently connected with the paper under supervision which would be even more highly authorized than an editor's, and growing, at the same time, more thoroughly impressed with the unusual character of her personal charm. Elfrida was a *'find" to Mr. Arthur Battray from a news- paper point of view, a find he gave himself credit for sagaciously recognizing, and one which it would be expedient to obtain complete possession of A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 183 I after the 1(1 time to eh he felt till then, of mental e an un- per. Mr. id toward ken, in a upon the lure ? " a )en-names xperience. ?sibly pre- 3 circum- ' !he part going on. in case of to go out f together ad if such fice would s. So he siastically Miss Bell er under 'e highly ig, at the with the Elfrida n a news- self credit h it would ;ession of before its market value should become known. And it was hardly possible for Mr. Eattray to divest himself of the newspaper point of view in the consideration of anything which concerned him personally. It struck him as uniquely fortu- nate that his own advantage and that of the Age should tally, as it undoubtedly might in this in- stance ; which, for Arthur Rattray, was putting the matter in a rather high, almost disinterested connection. It is doubtful whether to this day Mr. Eattray fully understands his rejection — it was done so deftly, so frankly, yet with such a delicate con- sideration for his feelings. He took it, he assured himself afterw^ards, without winking ; but it is unlikely that he felt sufficiently indebted to the manner of its administration, in congratulating himself upon this point. It may be, too, that he left Miss Bell with the impression that her inten- tion never to marry was not an immovable one, given indefinite time rnd indefinite abstention, on his part, from alluding to the subject. Certainly he found himself surprisingly little cast down by the event, and more resolved than ever to make the editor-in-chief admit that Elfrida's contribu- tions were "the brightest things in the paper" and act accordingly. He realized, in the course of time, that he had never been very confident of any other answer, but nothing is more certain than that it acted as a curious stimulus to his interest in Elfrida's work. He had long before found a co-enthusiast in Golightly Ticke, and on more than one occasion they agreed that some- thing must be done to bring Miss Bell before the public, to put within her reach the opportunity of the success she deserved, which was of the order Mr. Eattray described as " screaming." " So far as the booming is concerned," said i84 A daugiitp:r oi^' to-day. fii ' ft* Mr. llattray to Mr. Tickc, *'I will attend to that, but there must be something to boom. We can't sound the loud tocsin on a lot of our own paras. She must do something that will go between two covers." The men were talking in Golightly's room, over easeful Sunday afternoon cigars ; and as Eattray spoke they heard a light step mount the stairs. '* There she is now," replied Ticke. " Suppose wo go up, and propose it to her." "I wish I knew what to suggest," Rattray re- turned ; " but we might talk it over with her when slie's had time to take off her bonnet." Ten minutes later Elfrida was laughing at their ambitions. *'A success?" she exclaimed. "Oh yes ! I mean to have a success — one day. But not yet — oh no ! First I must learn to write a line decently, then a paragraph, then a page. 1 must wait, oh, a very long time — ten 3'ears, per- haps ; five, anyway." ;'0h, if you do that," protested Golightly Ticke, " it will be like decanted champagne. A success at nineteen " " Twenty-one," corrected Elfrida. '* Twenty-one, if you like— is a sparkling success. A success at thirty-one is — well, it lacks the accompaniments." " You are a great deal too exacting, Miss Bell," Eattray put in. *' Those things you do for us are charming ; you know they are." " You are very good to say so. I'm afraid they are only frivolous scraps." " My opinion is this," Rattray went on sturdily : "you only want material. Nobody can make bricks without straw — to sell, — and very few people can evolve books out of the air, that any publisher will look at. You get material for your scraps, and you treat it unconventionally, so the ■ i to that, We can't 'u paras, veen two lom, over Eattray tairs. Suppose ,ttray rc- ler when ; at their d. ''Oh ly. But write a page. 1 Lirs, per- ly Ticke, success success, cks the s Bell," r us are bid they turdily : 1 make 3ry few lat any or your so the A DAUGUTEll OF TO-DAY. 185 scraps supply a demand. It's a demand that's increasing every day — for fresh unconventional matter. Your ability to treat the scraps proves your ability to do more sustained work if you could find it. Get the material for a book, and I'll guarantee you'll do it well." Elfrida looked from one to the other with bright eyes. **What do you suggest ? " she said, with a nervous little laugh. She had forgotten that she meant to wait ten years. " That's precisely the difficulty," said Golightly, running his fingers through his hair. " We must get hold of something," said Battray. " You have never thought of doing a novel ? " Elfrida shook her head decidedly. '* Not now," she said. " I would not dare. I haven't looked at life long enough — I've had hardly any experi- ence at all. I couldn't conceive a single character with any force or completeness. And then, for a novel one wants a leading idea — the plot, of course, is of no particular consequence. Bather, I should say, plots have merged into leading ideas. And I have none." "Oh, distinctly," observed Mr. Ticke, finely. "A plot is as vulgar at this end of the century as a — as a dress improver, to take a feminine simile." Battray looked seriously uncomprehending, and slowly scratched the back of his hand. ** Couldn't you find a leading idea in some of the modern movements ? " he asked. " The higher education of women, for instance, or the suftrage agitation ? " " Or University Extension, or Bi-metallism, or Eight Hours' Labour, or Disestabhshment ? " Elfrida laughed. " No, Mr. Battray, I don't think 1 could. I might do some essays," she suggested. Battray, tilting his chair back, with his fore- fingers in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, pursed 1 1 :■ t ); 4 1 : I • I i86 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ft*''' rj.:; w his lips. "We couldn't get them read," he said. ** It takes a well-established reputation to carry essays. People will stand them from a Lang or a Stevenson, or that * Ohiter Dicta ' fellow, — not from an unknown young lady " Elfrida hit her lip. "Of course I am not any of those." "Miss Bell has done some idyllic verse," volunteered Golightly. The girl looked at him with serious reprobation. " I did not give you permission to say that," she said gravely. "No — forgive me! — but it's true, Rattray." He searched in his breast pocket and brought out a diminutive pocket-book. " May I show those two little things I copied ? " he begged, selecting a folded sheet of letter paper from its contents. " This is serious, you know, really. We must go into all the chances." Elfrida had a pang of physical distress. " Oh," she said hastily, " Mr. Rattray will not care to see those. They weren't written for the Age, you know," she added, forcing a smile. But Rattray declared that he should like it above all things, and looked the scraps gloomily over. One Elfrida had called " A Street Minstrel." Seeing him unresponsive, Golightly read it grace- fully aloud : — " One late November afternoon, I sudden heard a gentle rune. I could not see whence came the song", But, tranced, stopped and listened long ; And that drear month gave place to May, And all the city slipped away. The coal-carts ceased their din, — instead, I heard a bluebird overhead ; The pavements, black with dismal rain, Grew gently to a country lane ; A DAUGHTER OF TO-PAY. 187 he said, to carry Lang or ow, — not not any verse, »j robation. lat," she Rattray." ught out )w those selecting contents, must go *'0h," bre to see Age, you i like it gloomily linstrel." it grace- Plainly as I see you, my friend, I saw the lilacs sway and bond, A blossoming apple-orchard, where The chimneys fret the foggy air ; And wide-mown fields of clover sweet Sent up their fragrance at my feet ; And once again dear Phillis sat The thorn beneath, and trimnic^d h'^r hat. t * • • • T.ong looked I for my wizard bard : I fonnd him on the boulevard; And now my urban hearth he cheer.-^, Singing all day of sylvan yearn, Iiight thankful for the warmer spot, A cricket, by July forgot ! " Ticke looked inquiringly at Eattray when he had finished. Elfrida turned away her head, and tapped the floor impatiently with her foot. '* Isn't that dainty ? " demanded Golightly. " Dainty enough," Eattray responded, with a bored air. " But you can't read it to the public, you know. Poetry is out of the question. Poetry takes genius." Golightly and Elfrida looked at each other sympathetically. Mr. Ticke's eyes said, **How hideously we are making you suffer ! " and Elfrida's conveyed a tacit reproach. ** Travels would do better," Eattray went on. ** There's no end of a market for anything new in travels. Go on a walking tour through Spain by yourself, disguised as a nun or something, and write about what you see." Elfrida flushed with pleasure at the reckless idea. A score of situations rose before her, thril- ling, dangerous, picturesque, with a beautiful nun in the foreground. ** I should like it above all things," she said ; **but I have no money." ii iSS A DxVUG LITER OF TO-DAY. r " I'm afraid it would take a good deal," llattray returned. " That's a pity." ** It disposes of the question of travelling, tliougli, for the present." And Elfrida sighed with real regret. "It's your turn, Ticke. Suggest something!" Iiattray went on. " It must be unusual, (ind it must be interesting. Miss Bell must do something that no young lady has done before. That much she must concede to the trade. Granting that, the more artistically she does it the better." ** I should agree to that compromise," said Elfrida, eagerly; '"'anything to be left with a free hand." *' The book should be copiously illustrated," continued liattray, **and the illustrations should draw their interest from you personally." " I don't think I should mind that." ller imagination was busy at a bound with press criticisms, pirated American editions, newspaper paragraphs describing the colour of her hair, letters from great magazines asking for contribu- tions. It leaped with a fierce joy at the picture of Janet reading these paragraphs, and knowing, whether she gave or withheld her approval, that the world had pronounced in favour of Elfrida Bell. She wrote the single note with which she would send a copy to Kendal, and somewhere in the book there would be things which he would feel so exquisitely that The cover should have a French design, and be the palest yellow\ There was a moment's silence while she thought of these things, her knee clasped in her hands, her eyes blindly searching the dull red squares of the Llassa prayer-carpet. ''Eattray," said Golightly, with a suddenness that made both the others look up expectantly, A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 1S9 [lattniy til real ^nd it aetliins ,t much g that, " said ti a free :rate(l," shouhl h press ^spaper hair, ntribii- picture lowing, [il, that Elfrida ch she lere in woukl Id have There f these r eyes of the emiess tantly, **C()iihl ^liss Bell do her present work for the Aijc anywhere ? " ** Just now I think it's mostly book-reviews, isn't it ? and comments on odds and ends in the papers of interest to ladies. Yes ; not quite so well out of London, hut I dare say it could be done pretty much anywhere, reasonably near." '* Then," replied Golightly Ticke, with a repressed and guarded air, " I think I've got it." (IIArTEPi XXIV. Three days later a note from Miss Cardiff in Kensington Square to Miss Bell in Essex Court, Fleet Street, came hack unopened. A slanting line in very violet ink along the top read *' Out of town for the pressent. M. Jordan." Janet ex- amined the line carefully, but could extract nothing further from it, except that it had been written with extreme care by a person of limited education and a taste for colour. It occurred to her, in addition, that the person's name was probably Mary. Eifrida's actions had come to have a curious importance to Janet — she realized how great an importance with the excess of irritated surprise which came to her with this unopened note. In the beginning she had found Eifrida's passionate admiration so novel and so sweet that her heart was half won before they came together in com- pleter intimacy, and she gave her new, original friend a meed of affection which seemed to strengthen as it instinctively felt itself unreturned, at least in kind. Elfrida retracted none of her admiration, and she added to it, when she ceded her sympathy, the freedom of a fortified city; but |.j IQO A DAUQHTEIl OF TO-DAY. JiiiR't Imngerod for more. Inwardly she cried out for tho something warm and human that was lacking to Elfrida's feeHng for her ; and sometimes she asked herself, with grieved cynicism, how her friend found it worth while to pretend to care so cleverly. More than once she had written to Elfrida with the deliherate purpose of soothing herself by provoking some tenderness in reply, and invariably the key she had struck had been that of homage, more or less whimsically unwilling. ** DoiCt write such delicious things to me, ma )iur,'' would come the answer. "You make me curl up with envy ; what shall I do if malice and all un- charitableness follow ? I admire you so horribly — there ! " Janet told herself sorely that she was sick of Elfrida's admiration, it was not the stuff friendships were made of. And a keener pang supervened when she noticed that whatever savoured most of an admiration on her own part had obviously the highest value for her friend. The thought of Kendal only heightened her feeling about Elfrida. She would be so much the stronger, she thought, to resist any — any strain — if she could be quite certain Elfrida cared — cared about her personally. Besides, the indictment that she, Janet, had against her, seemed to make the girl's affection absolutely indispensable. And now Elfrida had apparently left London without a word. She had dined in Kensington Square the night before, and this was eleven o'clock in the morning. It looked very much as if she had deliberately intended to leave them in the dark as to her movements — people didn't go out of town indefinitely ''for the present," on an hour's notice. The thought brought sudden tears to Janet's eyes, which she winked btick angrily. "I am getting to be a perfect old maid!" she reflected. "Why shouldn't Elfrida go to Kams- 3 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 191 ;i'io(l out h'dt was )mctiines how licr ) care HO I'itton to soothing 3ply, and •een that nwillmg. ma ////f," e curl up cl all un- orribly — she was the stuff ler pang savoured )art had Qd. The feeling stronger, — if she ed about that she, the girl's London msington s eleven uch as if sm in the t go out on an ien tears angrily, d!" she Kams- clmtka, if she wants to, without giving us notice '? " And she frowned upon her sudden resolution to rush off to Fleet Street in a cab, and inquire of Mrs. Jordan, ^t would bo espionage. She would wait, quite calmly and indefinitely, till Frida cliosc to write, and then she would treat the escapade, whatever it was, with the perfect understanding of good-fellowship. Or perhaps not indefinitely — for two or three days; it was just possible that Frida might have had bad news, and started suddenly for America by the early train to Liverpool, iii which case she might easily not have had time to write. But in that case would not Mrs. Jordan have written *' Gone to America"? Her heart stood still with another thought — could she have gone with Kendal ! Granting that she had made up her mind to marry him, it would be just Elfrida's strange sensational way. Janet walked the floor in a restless agony, mechanically tearing the note into little strips. She must know — she must find out ! She would write and ask him for something — for what ? A book, a paper — the Xatr Montlihj ; and she must have some particular reason. She sat down to write, and pressed her fingers upon her throbbing eyes, in the effort to summon a particular reason. It was as far from her as ever when the maid knocked, and came in with a note from Kendal, asking them to go and see Miss Rehan in "As You Like It " that evening — a note fragrant of tobacco, not an hour old. "You needn't wait, Jessie," she said. "I'll send an answer later." And the maid had hardly left the room before Janet was sobbing silently and helplessly with her head on the table. As the day passed, however, Elfrida's conduct seemed less unforgivable, and by dinner time she was able to talk of u with simple wonder, which became more tolerant still in the course of the 1(J2 A DAUGUTKU oF ToOAV. f' cvcirng, when she discovcrecl that Kondal was as ignorant and as astonished as they themselves. " She will write," Janet said hopefully. But a week passed and Elfrida did not write. A settled discpiietude bej^an to make itself felt between the Cardiffs. Acceptinf? each other's silence for the statement that Elfrida had sent no word, they ceased to talk of her — as a topic her departure had become painful to both of them. Janet's anxiety finally conquered her . scruples, and she betook herself to Essex Court to inquire of ^Irs. Jordan. That lady was provokin^jly mysterious, and made the dilliculty of ascertaining that she know nothing whatever about Miss Bell's movements as great as possible. Janet saw an acquaintance with some collateral circumstance in her eyes, however, and was just turning away irritated by her attempts to obtain it, when Mrs. Jordan decided that the pleasure of the revelation would be, after all, greater than the pleasure of shielding the facts. "Wether it 'as anything to do with Miss Bell or not, of course I can't say," Mrs. Jordan re- marked with conscientious hypocrisy, '*but Mr. Ticke, lie left town that same mornin'." She looked disappointed when Miss Cardiff received this important detail indifferently. ** Oh, nothing whatever ! " Janet replied, with additional annoyance that Elfrida should have subjected herself to such an insinuation. Janet had a thorough-going dislike to Golightly Ticke. On her way back in the omnibus she reflected on the coincidence, however, and in the end she did not mention it to her father. The next day Lawrence Cardiff went to the A(/r office, and had the good fortune to see Mr. Rattray, who was flattered to answer questions regarding Miss Bell's whereabouts, put by any one he knew to be a friend. Mr. Rattray undertook to apologize A DAUGHTKR OF TO-DAY. 193 was as Ivcs. ]kit a ^ settled I'cen the for the rd, they turc had anxiety 5 betook Jordan, id made nothing; j:5rcat as th some !ver, and attempts that the ifter all, facts. liss Bell I'dan re- but Mr. ," She received ed, with Id have Janet y Ticke. cted on she did the Ajfr Rattray, egarding le knew pologize for their not hearing of the scheme — it had matured so suddenly, Miss Bell couldn't really have had time to do more than pack and start — in fact, t^ '0 had only been three days in which to make an Uio arrangements. And, of course, the facts were confidential, but there was no reason why Miss Bell's friends should not be in the secret. Then Mr. liattray imparted the facts, with a certain conscious gratili cation. There had been difficulties, but the difficulties had been surmounted, and he had heard from Miss Bell that morning that everything was going perfectly, and she was getting hold of magnificent copy. He was only sorry it wouldn't be suitable for serial publication in the Age, but, as Professor Cardiff was doubtless aware, the British public were kittle cattle to shoe behind, and he hardly thought the Ajir could handle it. ** Oh yes," Mr. Cardiff replied absently. *' Cheynemouth, I think you said — for the next live days. Thanks. Successful ? I dare say. The idea is] certainly a novel one. Good morn- ing ! " And lie left the sub-editor of the Illustrated Age in a state of some uncertainty as to the wis- dom of having disclosed so much. Half an hour later, when Kendal, who knew Eattray fairly well, called and asked him for Miss Bell's present address, he got it with some reluctance and fewer details. Cardiff drove to his club, and wrote a note to Janet, asking her to send his portmanteau to the 3.45 train at Euston, as he intended to run down to Cheynemouth, and migLI. stay over night. Ho fastened up the envelope ; then, after a moment's hesitation, tore it open, and added, ** Miss Bell is attempting a prenosterous thing. I am going to see if it cannot be prevented." He fancied Janet would understand his not caring to go into o ' 1 194 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. V ^h i N*^ ;• i" '; «ll ' ',|i particulars in the mean time. It was because of his aversion to going into particulars that he sent tlie note and lunched at the club, instead of driving home, as he had abundance of time to do. Janet would have to be content with that ; it would be bad enough to have to explain Tlattray's in- + derable *' scheme" to her when it had been frustrated. After luncheon he went into the smoking-room, and read through three leading articles, with an occasional inkling of their meaning. At the end of the third he became convinced of the absurdity of trying to fix his attention upon anything, and smoked his next Havana with his eyes upon the toe of his boot, in profound meditation. An observant person might have noticed that he passed his hand once or twice lightly, mechani- cally, over the top of his head ; but even an observant person would hardly have connected the action with Mr. CardiJBf's latent idea that, although his hair might be tinged in a damaging way, there was still a good deal of it. Three o'clock found him standing at the club window with his hands in his pockets, and the firm-set lips of a man who has made up his mind, looking unseeingly into the street. At a quarter-past six he was driving to the station in a hansom, smiling at the rosette on the horse's head, which happened to be a white one. *' There's Cardiff," said a man who saw him taking his ticket. '* More than ever the joli gargon,'" An hour and a half later one of the somewhat unprepossessing set of domestics attached to the Mansion Hotel, Cheynemouth, undertook to deliver Mr. Lawrence Cardiff's card to Miss Bell. She didn't remember no such name among the young ladies of the Peach Blossom Company, but she A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 195 iause of he sent driving Janet t would :ay's in- id been ig-rooin, with an the end ibsurdity ling, and upon the ion. An that he mechani- even an ected the although ^ay, there ick found lis hands man who y into the riving to L'osette on a w^hito saw him the joli somewhat ed to the to deliver ^ell. She lie young but she would h'inquire. There was a ladies' drawin'-room upstairs, if he would like to sit down. She con- ducted him to the ladies' drawing-room, which boasted two pairs of torn lace curtains ; a set of dirty furniture with plush trimmings ; several lithographs of mellow Oriental scenes, somewhat undecidedly poised upon the wall ; and a marble- topped centre-table, around which were disposed, at careful intervals, three or four copies of last year's illustrated papers. " You can w'yt 'ere, sir," she said, installing him, as it were. " I'll let you know direckly." At the end of the corridor the girl met Elfrida herself, who took the card with that quickening of her pulse, that sudden commotion, which had come to represent to her, in connection with any critical personal situation, one of the keenest pos- sible sensations of pleasure. *'You may tell the gentleman," she said quietly, "that I will come in a moment." Then she went back into her own room, closed the door, and sat down on the side of the bed, with a pale face, and eyes that com- prehended, laughed, and were withal a little frightened. That was what she must get rid of, that feeling of fear, that scent of adverse criticism. She would sit still till she was perfectly calm, perfectly accustomed to the idea that Lawrence Cardiff had come to remonstrate with her, and had come because — because what she had been gradually becoming convinced of all these months was true. He was so clever, so distinguished ; he had his eyes, and his voice, and his whole self so perfectly under control that she never could be quite, quite sure — but now ! And in spite of herself, her heart beat faster at the anticipation of w^hat he might be waiting to say to her, not twenty steps away. She hid her face in the pillow to laugh at the thought of how deliciously the in I iq6 A DAUGIITEIl OF TO-DAY. I r .c interference of an elderly lover would lend itself to the piece of work which she saw in fascinating development under her hand ; and she had an instantaneous flash of regret that she couldn't use it — no, she couldn't possibly. With fingers that trembled a little she twisted her hair into a knot that became her better, and gave an adjusting pat to the fluffy ends round her forehead. "Nous en ferons un comedie adorable ! " She nodded at the girl in the glass, and then, with the face and manner of a child detected in some mischief, who yet expects to be forgiven, she went into the drawing-room. At the sight of her all that Cardiff was ready to say vanished from the surface of his mind. The room was already grey in the twilight. He drew her by both hands to the nearest window, and looked at her mutely, searchingly. It seemed to him that she, who was so quick of apprehension, ought to know why he had come without words ; and her submission deepened his feeling of a com- plete understanding between them. " I've washed it all off," she said naively, lifting her face to his scrutiny. *'It's not an improve- ment by daylight, you know." He smiled a little, but he did not release her hands. "Elfrida, you must come home." ''Let us sit down," she said, drawing them away. He had a trifle too much advantage, standing so close to her, tall and firm in the dusk, knowing what he wanted, and with that tenderness in his voice. Not that she had the most far-away intention of yielding, but she did not want their little farce to be spoiled by any complications that might mar her pleasure in looking back upon it. *'I think," said she, "you will find that a com- fortable chair," and she showed him one which stood where all the daylight that came through the I 1 i A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 197 itsc4f to jcinating had an Idn't use ^ers that a knot 5tmg i^at Nous en ed at the face and liief, who into the ready to id. The He drew ^ow, and 3emed to 3hension, t words; f a com- y, lifting improve- ease her 1^ them .vantage, the dusk, nderness far-away ant their ions that upon it. t a com- le which ■ough the torn curtains concentrated itself. From her own seat she could draw her face into the deepest shadow in the room. She made the arrangement almost instinctively, and the lines of intensity the last week had drawn upon Cardiff's face were her first reward. " I have come to ask you to give up this thing," he said. Elfrida leaned forward a little in her favourite attitude, clasping her knee. Her eyes were widely serious. " You ask me to give it up ? " she repeated slowly. *' But why do you ask me ? " *' Because I cannot associate it with you — to mo it is impossible that you should do it." Elfrida lifted her eyebrows a little. ** Do you know why I am doing it ? " she asked. *' I think so." ** It is not a mere escapade, you understand. And these people do not pay me anything. That is quite just, because I have never learned to act, and I haven't much voice. I can take no part, only just — aj^pear." ''Appear!'' Cardiff exclaimed. "Have you appeared? " " Seven times," Elfrida said simply, but she felt that she was blushing. Cardiff's anger rose up hot within him and strove with his love ; and out of it there came a sicken- ing sense of impotency which assailed his very soul. All his life he had had tangibilities to deal with. This was something in the air, and already he felt the apprehension of being baffled here, where he wrought for his heart and his future. *' So that is a part of it," he said, with tight- ened lips. ** I did not know." ** Oh, I insisted upon that," Elfrida replied softly. ** I am quite one of them — one of the 198 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. r *.:! C V •< ¥> young ladies of the Peach Blossom Company. I am learning all their sensations, their little frailties, their vocahulary, their ways of looking at things. I know how the novice feels when she makes her first appearance in the chorus of a spectacle — I've noted every vihration of her nerves. I'm learning all the little jealousies and intrigues among them, and all their histories and amhitions. They are more moral than you may think, but it is not the moral one who is the most interesting. Her virtue is generally a very threadbare, common sort of thing. The — others — have more colour in the fabric of their lives, and you can't think how picturesque their passions are. One of the chorus girls has two children — I feel a brute sometimes at the way she " — Elfrida broke off, and looked out of the window for an instant. " She brings their little clothes into my bedroom to make. Though there is no need, they are in an asylum, She is divorced from their father," she went on coolly, **and he is married to the leading lady! Candidly," she added, looking at him with a courageous smile, " prejudice apart, is it not magnificent material ? " A storm of words trembled upon the verge of his lips, but his diplomacy instinctively closed them up. *' You can never use it," he said instead. *' Perfectly ! 1 am not quite sure about the form — whether I shall write as one of them, or as myself, telling the story of my experience. But I never dreamed of having such an opportunity 1 If I didn't mean to write a word, I should be glad of it. A look into another world, with its owil customs and language and ethics and pleasures and pains — quelle chance ! And then," she went on, as if to herself, '' to be of the life — the strange, unreal, painted, limelighted life that goes on behind the curtain ! That is something ! To act A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. T99 one's part in it ; to know that one's own secret rnlr is a thousand times more difficult than any in the repertoire ! You are horribly unresponsive ! Wo won't talk of it any longer," she added, with a little offended air. ** How is Janet ? " ** We must talk of it, Elfrida," Cardiff answered. "Let me tell yoa one thing," he added steadily ; ** such a book as you propose writing would be classed as the lowest sensationalism. People would compare it with the literature of the Police Court." Elfrida sprang to her feet, with her head thrown back and her beautiful eyes alight. *' ' Touche ! '" Cardiff thought exultingly. "You may go too far!" she exclaimed pas- sionately. " There are some things that may not be said." Cardiff went over to her quickly and took her hand. "Forgive me," he said — "forgive me; I am very much in earnest." She turned away from him. " You had no right to say it ! You know my work, and you know that the ideal of it is everything in the world to me — my religion ! How dared you suggest such a com- parison ? " Her voice broke, and Cardiff fancied she was on the brink of tears. " Elfrida," he cried miserably, " let us have an end of this ! I have no right to intrude my opinions — if you like, my prejudices — between you and what you are doing. But I have come to beg you to give me the right." He came a step closer and laid his free hand lightly on her shoulder. " Elfrida," he said unhesitatingly, " I want you to be my wife." "And Janet's step-mother!" thought the girl swiftly. But she hoped he would not mention Janet. It would burlesque the situation. " Your going away made me quite sure," he 200 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. If.' . till' added simply. ^* I can never do without you altogether again. Instead, I want to possess you altogether." He bent his fine face to the level of hers, and took both her hands in his. Elfrida thought that by that light he looked strangely young. She slipped her hands away, but did not move. He was still very close to her — she could feel his breath upon her hair. " Oh no," she said; ''marriage is so absurd! " and immediately it occurred to her that she might have put this more effectively. ** Cela n'est pas bien dit ! " she thought. ** Let us sit down together and talk about it," he answered gently, and drew her toward the little sofa in the corner. " But — I am afraid — there is nothing more to say. And in a quarter of an hour I must go." Cardiff smiled masterfully. *'I could marry you, little one, in a quarter of an hour," ho said. But at the end of that time Lawrence Cardiff found himself very far from the altar, and more enlightened perhaps than he had ever been before about the radicalism of certain modern sentiments concerning it. She would change, he averred. Might he be allowed to hope that she would change, and to wait — months, years ? She would never change, Elfrida avowed, it was useless — quite useless — tc think of that. The principle had too deep a root in her being ; to tear it up would be to destroy her whole joy in life, she said — leaving Cardiff to wonder what she meant. **I will wait," he said, as she rose to go, ** but you will come back with me now, and we will write a book — some other book — together." The girl laughed gaily. "All alone, myself I must do it," she answered. *' And I must do this A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 201 book. You will approve it when it is done. I am not afraid." He had her hands again. *' Elfrida," he threat- ened, "if you go on the stage to-night in the costume I see so graphically advertised — an Austrian hussar, isn't it ? — I will attend. I will take a box," he added, wondering at his own brutality. But by any means he must prevail. Elfrida turned a shade paler. "You will not do that," she said pravely. " Good-bye. Thank you for having come to persuade mc to give this up. And I wish I could do what you would like. But it is quite, quite impossible !" She bent over him, and touched his forehead lightly with her lips. "Good-bye," she said again, and was gone. An hour later he was on his way back to town. As the mail train whizzed by another, side-tracked to await its passing, Mr. Cardiff might have seen Kendal, if there had been time to look, puffing luxuriously in a smoking compartment, and un- folding a copy of the Illustrated Age, CHAPTEK XXV. Before he had been back in Norway a week, Kendal felt his perturbation in regard to Elfrida remarkably quieted and soothed. It seemed to him, in the long hours in which he fished and painted, that in the progress of the little drama, from its opening act at Lady Halifax's to its final scene at the studio, he had arrived at something solid and tangible as the basis of his relation toward the girl. It had precipitated in him a power of comprehending her, and of criticizing her, which he had possessed before only, as it 202 A ])AU(}HTER OF TO-DAY. tr' •t Ik uorc, ill solution. Whatever once held him from stating to himself the results of his study of her had vanished, leaving him no name by which to call it. He found that he could smile at her whimsicalities, and reflect upon her odd develop- ment, and regret her devouring egotism, without the vision of her making dumb his voluble thought; and he no longer regretted the incident that gave him his freedom. He realized her as he painted her ; and the realization visited him less often, much less often, than before. Even the fact that she knew what he thought gradually became an agreeable one. There would be room for no hypo- crisies between them. He wished that Janet Cardiff could have some such experience. It was provoking that she should be still so loyally aveufflc ; that he would not be able to discuss Elfrida with her, when he went back to London, from an impersonal point of view. He had a strong desire to say precisely what he thought of her friend to Janet, in which there was an obscure recognition of a duty of reparation ; obscure be- cause he had no overt disloyalty to Janet to charge himself with, but none the less present. He saw the intimacy between the two girls from a new point of view ; he comprehended the change the months had made; and he had a feeling of some displeasure that Janet Cardiff should have allowed herself to be so subdued, so seconded in it. Kendal came back a day or two before Elfrida's disappearance, and saw her only once in the mean time. That was on the evening — which struck him later as one of purposeless duplicity — before the Peach Blossom Company left for the provinces, when he and Elfrida both dined at the Cardiffs'. With him that night she had the air of a chidden child ; she was silent and embarrassed, and now A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 20; im from y of her ivbicli to at her develop- without thought ; liat gave painted 5s often, fact that 5ame an ao hypo- t Janet It was loyally discuss London, 3 had a ought of , obscure cure be- anet to present, rls from change seling of lid have oconded Elfrida's he mean struck — before •ovinces, lardiffs', chidden md now and then he caught a glance which told him in so many words that she was very sorry, she hadn't meant to, she would never do it again. He did not for a moment suspect that it all referred to the scene at Lady Halifax's, and that it was more than half real. It was not easy to know that even genuine feeling with Elfrida required a cloak of artifice. He put it down as a pretty pose, and found it as objectionable as the one he had painted. He was more curious, perhaps, but less disturbed than either of the Cardiffs as the days went by and Elfrida made no sign. He felt, however, that his curiosity was too irreligious to obtrude upon Janet; besides, his Knowledge of her hurt anxiety kept him within the bounds of the simplest inquiry ; while she, noting his silence, believed him to be eating his heart out. In the end it was the desire to relieve and to satisfy Janet that took him to the A«jc office. It might be impossible for her to make such inquiries, he told himself, but no obli- gation could i)ossibly attach to him, except — and his heart throbbed affirmatively at this — the obli- gation of making Janet happier about it. He could have laughed aloud when he heard the scheme from Kattray's lips — it so perfectly filled out his picture, his future projection of Elfrida; he almost assured himself that he had imagined and expected it. But his first motive was suddenly lost in an upstarting brood of impulses that took him to the railway station with the smile still upon his lips. Here was a fresh development ; his interest was keenly awake again, he would go and verify the facts. When his earlier intention re-occurred to him in the train he dismissed it with the thought that what he had seen would be more effective, more disillusionizing, than what he had merely heard. He triumphed in advance over Janet's disillusion, but he thought more ^1 204 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 5' t eagerly of the pleasure of proving, with his own eyes, another step in the working out of the pro- blem which he believed he had solved in Elfrida. " Big house to-night, sir ! All the stalls taken," said the young man with the high collar in the box-office when Kendal appeared before the window. " Pit," replied Kendal ; and the youug man stared. *'Pit, did you say, sir? Well, you'll 'ave to look slippy, or you won't get a seat there either." Kendal was glad it was a full house. He began to realize how ver}' much he would prefer that Elfrida should not see him there. From his point of view it was perfectly warrantable ; he had no sense of any obligation which would prevent his adding to his critical observation of her — but from Miss Bell's ? He found himself lacking the assur- ance that no importance was to be attached to Miss Bell's point of view, and he turned up his coat collar and pulled his hat over his eyes and seated himself as obscurely as possible, with a satisfactory sense that nobody could take him for a gentleman, mingled with a less agreeable suspicion that it was doubtful whether, under the circum- stances, he had a complete right to the title. The overture strung him up more pleasurably than usual however. He wondered if he should recog- nize her at once, and what part she would have. He did not know the piece, but of course it would be a small one. He wondered — for so far as he knew she had had no experience of the stage — how she could have been got ready in the time to take even a small one. Inevitably it would be a part with three words to say and nothing to sing, probably a maid- servant's. He smiled as he thought how sincerely Elfrida would detest such a personation. ■DAY. A DAUGUTEU OF TO-DAY. 20 i ig, with his own : out of the pro- ved in Elfrida. fche stalls taken," gh collar in the red before the the young man , you'll 'avc to k there either." )use. Pie befjan ►uld i^refcr that From his point ble ; he had no uld prevent his f her — but from jking the assur- be attached to turned up his r his eyes and Dssible, with a take him for a eable suspicion er the circum- the title. The asurably than I should recog- e would have. Durse it would so far as he )f the stage — in the time to it would be a thing to sing, miled as he i detest such When the curtain rose at last, ^fr. John Kendal searched the stage more eagerly than the presence there of any mistress of her art had ever induced him to do before. The first act was full of gaiety, and the music was very tolerable ; but Kendal, scanning one insistent figure and painted face after another, heard nothing, in effect, of what was said or sung — he was conscious only of a strong dis- appointment when it was over and Elfrida had not appeared. The curtain w^ent up again to a quick step, to clinking steel, and the sound of light, marching feet. An instant after forty young women were rhythmically advancing and retreating before the footlights, picturesquely habited in a military costume, comprising powdered wigs, three-cornered hats, gold-embroidered blue coats, flesh-coloured tights, and kid top-boots, which dated uncertanily from the Middle Ages. They sang as they crossed their varyingly shapely legs, stamped their feet, and formed into figures no drill-book ever saw, a chorus of which the refrain was — " Oh it never matters, matters, Though his coat be tatters, tatters, Ilia good sword rust-encrusted, and his songs all sun The maids wiU flatter, flatter, And his foes wiU scatter, scatter, n ) For a soldier is a soldier while his heart is young ! " the last line accompanied by a smiling flirt of their eyes over their shoulders and a kick to the rear as they wheeled, which evoked the unstinted apprecia- tion of the house. The girls had the unvarying pink and white surfaces of their profession, but under it they obviously differed much, and the age and emaciation and ugliness amongst them had its common emphasis in the contrast of their smart masculine attire with the distressingly feminine outlines of their figures. I should have thought I 206 A DAUGIITEU OF TO-DAV. « n> it impossible to make a woman absolutely liideous by a dress that revealed her form," said Kendal to himself, as the jinj^ling and the dancinp; and the music went on in the glare before him. " JUit upon my word ! " Ho paused suddenly. She wasn't absolutely hideous, that tall girl with the plume and the sword, who mancruvred always in fr(mt of the company — the lieutenant in charge. Indeed, she was comely every way, slight and graceful ; and there was a singular strong beauty in her face which was enhanced by the rouge and the powder, and culminated in the laugh in her eyes and upon her lips — a laugh which meant enjoyment, excitement, exhilaration. It grew upon Kendal that none of the chorus- girls approached Elfrida in the abandon with which they tlirew themselves into the representation — that all the others were more conscious than she of the wide-hipped incongruity of their role. To the man who beheld her there in an absolutely new world of light and colour and coarse jest, it seemed that she was perfectly oblivious of any other, and that her personality was the most aggressive, the most ferociously determined to be made the most of on the stage. As the chorus ceased, a half-grown youth remarked to his com- panion in front, **But the orlicer's the one, Dave ! Ain't she fly ! " and the words coming out dis- tinctly in the moment of aiter-silence, when the applause was over, set the pit laughing for two or three yards around. Whereat Kendal, with an assortment of feelings which he took small pleasure in analyzing later, got up and went out. People looked up angrily at him as he stumbled over their too-numerous feet in doing so — he was spoiling a solo of some pathos by Mr. Golightly Ticke in the character of a princely refugee, a fur-trimmed mantle and shoes with buckles. hideous Kondal ing and ,'. Sho vith tlio wavs ill chai'f^e. rrht and ; beauty )U}^e and I in lier 1 meant I chorus- th which itation — than sho wh'. To bsolutely le jest, it 1 of any ;he most ed to bo chorus his com- le, Dave ! out dis- ^vhen the for two with an pleasure People )ver their spoiling a ke in the -trimmed A DAUUIITEU 01' 'iO-DAV. 207 Kendal informed himself with some severity tliat no possible motive could induce him to nniko any comment upon ^liss Bell to Janet, and found it necessary to go down into Devonshire next day, where his responsibilities had begun to make a direct and persistent attack upon him. It was the first time ho had yielded, and lie could not lielp being amused by the remembrance in the train of Elfrida's solemn warning about the danger of his growing typical and going into Parliament. A middle-aged country gentleman, with broad shoulders and a very red neck, occupied tlie com- partment with him, and handled the Timrs as if the privilege of reading it were one of the few the democratic spirit of the age had left to his class. Kendal scanned him with interest and admiration and pleasure. It was an excellent thing that England's backbone should be composed of men like that, he thought, and he half wished he were not so consciously undeserving of national vertebral honours himself — that Elfrida's warnings had a little more basis of probability. Not that he wanted to drop his work, but a man owed some- thing to his country, especially when he had what they called a stake in it — to establish a home per- haps, to marry, to have children growing up about him. A man had to think of his old age. lie told himself that he must be the lightest product of a flippant time, since these things did not occur to him more seriously ; and he threw himself into all that had to be done upon *' the place," when he arrived at it, with an energy that disposed its real administrators to believe that his ultimate salva- tion as a landlord was still possible. He was talking to Janet Cardiff at one of Lady Halifax's afternoon teas a fortnight later, when their hostess advanced toward them interrogatively. "While I think of it, Janet," said she, laying 2o8 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. I m ^'' -1, a mittencd hand on Miss Cardiff's arm, *Svliat has become of your eccentric little American friend ? I sent her a card a month ago, and we've neither heard nor seen anything of her." ** Elfrida Bell — oh, she . is out of town, Lady Halifax. And I am rather desolate without her — we see so much of her, you know. But she will be back soon — I dare say I will be able to bring her next Thursday. How delicious this coffee is ! I shall have another cup, if it keeps me awake for a week ! Oh ! you got my note about the concert, dear lady?" Ktndal noticed the adroitness of her chatter with amusement. Before she had half finished, Lady Halifax had taken an initial step toward moving off, and Janet's last words received only a nod and a smile for reply. " You know, then ? " said he, when that ex- cellent woman was safely out of earshot. *' Yes, I know%" Janet answered, twisting the hanging end of her long-haired boa about her wrist. '* I feel as if I oughtn't to ; but daddy told me. Daddy went, you know, to try to per- suade her to give it up. I was so angry with him for doing it. He might have known Elfrida better ! And it was such a — such a criticism ! " *'I wish you would tell me what you really think," said Kendal, audaciously. Janet sipped her coffee nervously. *' I — I have no right to think," she returned. **I am not in Frida's confidence in the matter ; but of course she is perfectly right, from her point of view." ** Ah ! " Kendal said, '' her point of view ! " Janet looked up at him with a sudden percep- tion of the coldness of his tone. In spite of herself, it gave her keen happiness, until the reflection came that probably he resented her qualification. A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 209 and turned lior heart to lead. She searched her soul for words. '*If she wants to do this thing, she has taken, of course, the only way to do it well. She docs not need any justification — none at all. I wish she were back," Janet went on desperately, "hut only for my own sake — I don't like being out of it with her — not for any reason connected with what she is doing." There was an appreciable pause hot ween them. ''Let me put down your cup," suggested Kendal. Turning to her again, he said gravely, " I saw Miss Bell at Cheynemouth too." Janet's hands trembled as she fastened the fur at her throat. "And I also wish she were back. But my reason is not, I am afraid, so simple as yours." "Here is daddy," Janet answered, " and I know he wants to go. I don't think my father is looking ([uite as well as he ought to. He doesn't complain, l>ut I suspect him of concealed neuralgia. Please give him a lecture on overdoing ; it's the i)re- dominant vice of his character ! " CHAPTEE XXVI. Elfrida spent five weeks with the Peach Blossom Company on their provincial tour, and :;- the end the manager was sorry to lose her. Ho was nnder the impression that she had joined i) «^m ;.s an aspiring novice, presumably able to {:;iat'iy that or any other whim ; he had guessed that she was clever, and could see that she was extremely good looking. Before the month was out he was con- gratulating himself upon his perception, much as Rattray had a habit of doing, and was quite ready r 2IO A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. I i f ' I I ■ii I to give Elfrida every encouragement she wanted to embrace the burlesque stage seriously ; it was a thundering pity she hadn't voice enough for comic opera. He had nothing to complain of, the arrange- ment had been for a few weeks only, and had cost him the merest trifle of travelling expenses ; but the day Elfrida went back to town he was inclined to parley with her, to discuss the situation, and to make suggestions for her future plan of action. His attitude of visible regret added another thrill to the joy the girl had in the thought of her under- taking ; it marked a point of her success, she thought, at least in so far as preliminaries went. Already as she shrank fastidiously into the corner of a third-class travelling carriage, her project seemed to have reached its original and notable materialization. Chapters passed before her eyes as they do sometimes in dreams, full of charm and beauty; the book went through every phase of comedy and pathos, always ringing true. Little half-formed sentences of admirable art rose before her mind, and she hastily barred them out, feeling that she was not ready yet, and it would be mad misery to want them and to have forgotten them. The thought of what she meant to do possessed her wholly though, and she resigned herself to dreams of the most effective arrangement of her material — the selection of her publisher, the long midnight hours alone with Buddha, in which she should give herself up to the enthralment of speak- ing with that voice which she could summon, that elusive voice which she lived only, only, t*o be the medium for ; that precious voice which would be heard one day — yes, and listened to. She was so freshly impressed with the new life- lights, curious, tawdry, fascinating, revolting, above all, sharp and undisguised, of the world she had left, that she saw them already projected with ; I A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 21 I he wanted ' ; it was a I for comic le arrange- d had cost mses ; but IS inclined Lon, and to of action. ither thrill her under- ccess, she iries went. the corner er project id notable •e her eyes 3harm and ■ phase of tie. Little ose before ut, feeling d be mad ;en them. possessed lerself to nt of her the long rt^hich she of speak- mon, that fo be the would be new life- revolting, world she icted with a verisimilitude which, if she had possessed the art of it, would have made her indeed famous. Her own power of realization assured her on this point ; nobody could see — not divine, but see as she did, without being able to reproduce ; the one implied the other. She fingered feverishly the strap of the little hand-bag in her lap, and satisfied herself by unlocldng it with a key that hung on a string inside her jacket. It had two or three photographs of the women she knew among the compan}^, another of herself in her stage uniform, a bill of the play, her powder and rouge box, a scrap of gold lace, a young Jew's letter fall ()f blots and devotion, a rather vulgar sapphire bracelet, some artificial flowers and a quantity of slips of paper of all sizes covered with her own enigma- tically rounded handwriting. She put her hand in carefully and searched ; everything was there, and up from the bag came a scent that made her shut her eyes and laugh with its power to bring her experiences back to her. She locked it care- fully again with a quivering sigh; after all, she would not have many hours to wait. Presently an idea came to her that she thought worth keeping, and she thrust her hand into her pocket for paper and pencil. She drew out a crumpled oblong scrap and wrote on the back of it, then unlocked the bag again and put it carefully in. Before it had been only the cheque of the Illusimtcd Age for a fort- night's work, now it w^as the record of something valuable. The train rolled into a black and echoing station as the light in the carriage began to turn from the uncertain greyness that came in at the window to the uncertain yellowness that descended from the roof. Boys ran up and down the length of the platform in the foggy gaslit darkness shouting Banbury cakes and newspapers. Elfrida hated 2 12 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. I ! ' ( i I fcti, f . I ' I i ! ' ' - i : i I ! I I i > m Banbury cakes, but she had a consumhig hunger and bought some. She also hated English newspapers, but lately some queer new notable Australian things had been appearing in the St, Gcorfie's Gazette — Cardiff had sent them to her — and she selected this journal from the damp lot that hung over the newsboy's arm, on the chance of a fresh one. The doors were locked and the train hurried on. Elfrida ate two of her Banbury cakes with the malediction that only this British confection can inspire, and bestowed the rest upon a small boy who eyed her enviously over the back of an adjoining seat. She and the small boy and his mother had the carriage to themselves. There was nothing from the unusual Australian contributor in "^his number of the *S7. Georfir'n, and Elfrida turned its pages with the bored feeling of knowing what else she might expect. ''Parlia- mentary Debates," of course, and the news of London ; five lines from America announcing the burning of a New York hotel, with hideous loss of life ; an article on the situation in Persia, and one on the cultivation of artichokes ; " Money," " The Seer of Hawarden," the foreign markets, book reviews. Elfrida thought also that she knew what she might expect here, and that it would be nothing very absorbing. Still, with a sense of tasting criticism in advance, she let her eye travel over the column or two of the paper devoted to three or four books of the week. A moment later Janet Cardiff's name in the second paragraph had B^jrung at her throat, it seemed to Elfrida, and choked her. She could not see — she could not see ! The print -was so bad, the light was infernal, the carriage jolted so ! She got up and held the paper nearer to the lamp in the roof, staying iiig li linger i\ English ew notable ng in the it them to Q the damp rm, on the vere locked two of her at only this jstowed the r enviously She and lie carriage [ Australian 't. Gcorcjc^y lorcd feeling . **Parlia- 10 news of ouncing the eous loss of da, and one ley," " The kets, book knew what would be I sense of r eye travel devoted to oment later agrapli had Ifrida, and see ! The ifernal, the and held oof, staying A DAUGIITEll OF TO-DAY. 211 herself against the end of a scat. As she read, she grew paler, and the paper shook in her hand. " One of the books of the year," " showing grasp of character and keen dramatic instinct," "a dis- tinctly original vein," ** too slender a plot for perfect symmetry, but a treatment of situation at once nervous and strong," were some of the commonplaces that said themselves over and over again in her mind as she sank back into her i)lace by the window with the paper lying across her lap. Her heart beat furiously, her head was in a whirl, she stared hard for calmness into the swift-passing night outside. Presently she recog- nized herself to be angry with an intent,, still, jealous anger ^that seemed to rise and consume her in every part of her being. A success — of course it would be a success if Janet wrote it — she was not artistic enough to fail. Ah, should Janet's friend go so far as to say that? She didn't know — she would think afterwards ; but Janet was of those who succeed, and there were more ways than one of deserving success. Janet was a compromise; she belonged really to the British public, and the class of Academy studies from the nude, which were always draped, just a little. Elfrida found a bitter satisfaction in this simile, and elaborated it. The book would be one to be" commended for jriincs ^filli's, and her lips turned down mockingly in the shadow. Slie fancied some w^ell-meaning critic saying, " It should be on every drawing-room tal)le," and she almost laughed outright. She thought of a number of other little things that might be said, of the same nature, and equally amusing. Ilcr anger flamed up again at the thought of how Janet had concealed this ambition from her, had made her, in a way, the victim of it. It was not I I 214 A DAUGUTER OF TO-DAY. 4 t t: iM I ■ ) i"! ii I UK fair, not fair ! Slic could have prcparcrl herself against it — she might have got Iter hook ready sooner, and its triumph might at least have come out side hy side with Janet's. She was just beginning to feel that they were neck and neck, in a way, and now Janet had shot so far ahead, in a night, in a paragraph ! She could never, never catch up ! And from under her closed eye- lids two hot tears started and ran over her cold cheeks. It came upon her suddenly that she w^as sick with jealousy, not envy, hut pure anger at being distanced, and she tried to attack herself about it. With a strong effort, she heaped oppro- brium and shame upon herself, denounced herself, tried to hate herself. But she felt that it was all a kind of dumb show, and that under it nothing could change the person she was, or the real feeling she had about this — nothing except hcinf/ first! Ah, then she could be generous, and loyal, and disinterested — then she could be really a nice person to know, she derided herself. And as her foot touched the little hand-bag on the floor, she took a kind of sullen courage, which deserted her when she folded the paper on her lap, and w\is struck again in the face with Lash and Black's advertisement on the outside page, announcing Janet's novel in letters that looked half a foot long. Then she resigned herself to her wretched- ness, till the train sped into the glare of Paddington. **I hope you're not bad, miss," remarked the small boy's mother as they pushed toward the door together. *' Them Banburys don't agree with everybody." The effect upon Elfrida was hysterical. She controlled herself just long enough to answer with decent gravity, and escaped upon the platform to burst into a silent, quivering paroxysm of laughter A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 215 that brought her over-charged feelings delicious relief, and produced an answering smile on the face of a large good-looking policeman. Her laugh rested hei, calmed her, and restored something of her moral tone. She was at least able to resist the temptation of asking the boy at the book-stall where she bought **John Camberwell" whether the volume was selling rapidly or not. Buddha looked on askance while she read it, all ni^^ht long, and well into the morning. Slie reached the last page and flung down the book in pure physical exhaustion, with the framework of half a dozen reviews in her mind. When she awoke, at two in the afternoon, she decided that she must have another day or two of solitude — she would not let the Cardiffs know she had returned quite yet. Three days afterwards the Illustrated Af/c pub- blished a review of ** John Camberwell," which brought an agreeable perplexity to Messrs. Lash and Black. It was too good to compress, and their usual advertising space would not contain it all. It was almost passionately appreciative; here and there the effect of the criticism was obviously marred by the desire of the writer to let no point of beauty or of value escape divination. Quotations from the book were culled like flowers, with a delicate hand ; and there was conspicuous care in the avoidance of any phrase that was hackneyed, any line of criticism that custom had impoverished. It seemed that the writer fashioned a tribute, and strove to make it perfect in every way. And so perfect it was, so cunningly devised and gracefully expressed, with such a self-conscious beauty of word and thought, that its extravagance went unsuspected and the interest it provoked was its own. Janet read the review in a glow of remorseful affection. She was appealed to less by the ¥ I M ;i I if II iri II ilill 2l6 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. exquisite manipulation with "which the phrases strove to say the most and the best, than by the loyal haste to praise she saw behind them, and she forgave their lack of blame, in the happy belief that Elfrida had not the heart for it. She wa^ not in ^he least angry that her friend should have done her the injustice of what would have been, less adroitly managed, indiscriminate praise ; in fact, she hardly thought of the value of the critique at all, so absorbed was she in the sweet sense of the impulse that made Elfrida write it. To Janet's quick forgiveness, it made up for every- thing; indeed, she found in it a scourge for her anger, for her resentment. Elfrida might do what she pleased, Janet would never cavil again; she was sure now of some real possession in her friend. But she longed to see Elfrida, to assure herself of the warm verity of this. Besides, she wanted to feel her work in her friend's presence, to extract the censure that was due, to take the essence of IDraise from her eyes, and voice, and hand. But she would wait. She had still no right to know that Elfrida had returned, and an odd sensitive- ness prevented her from driving instantly to Essex Court to ask. The next day passed and the next. Lawrence Cardiff found no reason to share his daughter's scruples, and went twice, to meet ]Mrs. Jordan on the threshold with the implacable statement that Miss Bell had returned, but was not at home. He found it impossible to mention Elfrida to Janet now. Kendal had gone back to Devonshire to look after the thinning of a bit of his woodlands — one thing after another claimed his attention there. Janet had a gay note from him now and then, always en camerade, in which he deplored himself in the character of an intelligent landowner ; but lit!' A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 2 I in which she detected also a growing interest and satisfaction in all that he was finding to do. Janet saw it always with a throh of pleasure ; his art was much to her, hut the sympathy that hound him to the practical side of his world was more, though she would not have confessed it. She was un- consciously comforted hy the sense that it was on the warm, bright, comprehensible side of his in- terest in life that she touched him, and that Elfrida did not touch him. The idea of the country house in ]^evonshire excluded Elfrida, and it was an exclusion Janet could be happy in conscientiously, since Elfrida did not care. CHAPTER XXVII. Even in view of her popular magazine articles and her literary name, Janet's novel was a surprising success. There is no reason why we should follow the example of all the London critics, except Elfrida Bell, and go into the detail of its slender story and its fairly original, broadly human quali- ties of treatment to exj)lain this ; the fact will perhaps be accepted without demonstration. It was a common phrase among the reviewers, though Messrs. Lash and Black carefully cut it out of their selections for advertisement, that the book was in no way remarkable; and the pul)- lishers were as much astonished as anj'body else when the first edition was exhausted in three weeks. Yet the agreeable fact remained that the reviews gave it the amount of space usually assigned to books allowed to be remarkable ; and that the Athenian announced the second edition to be had " at all booksellers "on a certain Monday. 2l8 A fjAuoiiteu of to-day. fv* ■• 1% 9f s'-ii " I! % m 'II; " When tlicy say it is not remarkable," wrote Kendal to Janet, ** they mean that it is not heroic ; and that it is published in one volume, at six shillings. To be remarkable — to the trade — it should have dealt with epic passion, in three volumes, at thirty." To him the book had a charm quite apart from its literary value, in the revelation it made of its author. It was the first piece of work Janet had done from a seriously artistic point of view, into which she had thrown herself without fence or guard ; and it was, to him, as if she had stepped from behind a mask. He w^'ote to her about it with the confidence of the new relation it estab- lished between them ; he looked forward with warm pleasure to the closer intimacy which it would bring. To Janet, living in this new sweet- ness of their better understanding, only one thing was lacking — Elfrida made no sign. If Janet could have known, it was impossible. In her review, Elfrida had done all she could. She had forced herself to write it before she touched a line of her own work ; and now, persistently remote in her attic, she strove every night over the pile of nottss which represented the ambition that sent its roots daily deeper into the fibre of her being. Twice she made up her mind to go to Kensington Square, and found she could not; the last time being the day the Decade said that a new and larger edition of *'John Camberwell " was in preparation. Ten days after her return, the maid at Kensing- ton Square, with a curious look, brought up Elfrida's card to Janet. Miss Bell was in the drawing-room, she said. Yes, she had told Miss Bell Miss Cardiff was up in the library ; but Miss Bell said she would wait in the drawing-room. Janet looked at the card in astonishment, Y. A DAUGHTER OP TO-DAY. 219 kablo," wrote is not heroic ; lume, at six he trade — it ion, in three ) ai)art from made of its •k Janet liad )f view, into 3ut fence or had step2)ed her about it ion it estab- )rward with cy which it i new sweet- ly one thing If Janet In her She had iched a line y remote in the pile of hat sent its her being. Kensington last time new and was in e. i. if i/t Kensing- rought up vas in the told Miss ; but Miss room, mishment, debating with hcrHclf what it might mean. Such a formality was absurd between tlicm ! Why had not Elfrida come up at once to this third-story den of tlieirs she knew so well ? What new pre- posterous caprice was this? She went down gravely, chilled ; but before she reached the draw- ing-room she resolved to take it another way — as a whim, as a matter for scolding. After all, she was glad Elfrida had come back to her on any terms. She went in radiant, with a quick step, holding the card at arm's length. '* To what," she demanded mockingly, " am I to attribute the honour of this visit ? " But she seized Elfrida lightly, and kissed her on both cheeks, before it was possible for her to reply. The girl disengaged herself gently. '' Oh, I have come, like the rest, to lay my homage at your feet," she said, with a little smile that put spaces between them. ** You did not expect mo to deny myself that pleasure ? " ** Don't be absurd, Frida. When did you come back to town?" "When did I come back?" Elfrida repeated slowly, watching for the effect of her words. " On the first, I think it was." ** And this is the tenth ! " Janet exclaimed, adding helplessly, ** You are an enigma ! Why didn't you let me know ? " ** How could I suppose that you would care to know anything just now — except what the papers tell you ? " Janet regarded her silently, saying nothing. Under her look Elfrida's expression changed a little, grew uncomfortable. The elder girl felt the chill, the seriousness with which she received the card upstairs, return upon her suddenly ; and she became aware that she could not, with self-respect, fight it any longer. . 220 A PAUdllTKU OF TO-DAY. r 'II!'' 1!'! 1 Kt ' ■■ : I *'If you tlionp;littliat," slio said gravely, ** it was a curiouH thin^' to think. lUit I believe I am in- debted to you for one of the pleasantest things tlu^ pjipers have been telHng me," she went on with constraint. " It was very kind — much too kind. Thank you very much." Klfrida looked up, half frightened, at the revul- sion of her tone. **J3ut — but your book is de- lightful. I was no more charmed than everybody must be. And it has made a tremendous hit, hasn't it?" ** Thanks, I believe it is doing a fair amount of credit to its publishers. They are very pushing people." '*How delicious it must feel!" Elfrida said. ITer words were more like those of their ordinary relation, but her tone and manner had the aloofness uf the merest acquaintance. Janet felt a slow anger grow up in her. It was intolerable, this dictation of their relation. Elfrida desired a change. She should have it, but not at her caprice. Janet's innate dominance rose up, and asserted a superior right to make the terms between them ; and all the hidden jar, the unac- knowledged contempt, the irritation, the hurt and the stress of the year that had passed, rushed in from banishment and gaine:! possession of her. She took just an appreciable instant to steady herself, and then her grey eyes regarded Elfrida with a calm remoteness in them which gave the other girl a quick impression of having done more than she meant to do, gone too far to return. Their glances met, and Elfrida's eyes, unquiet and undecided, dropped before Janet's. Already she had a vibrant regret. ''You enjoyed being out of town, of course?" Janet said. "It is always pleasant to leave London for a w'hile, I think." A DAnillTKIl OF TO-DAY. 2 2 1 t to leave Tlicrc NViis II cool niftsti'i'fuliicss in the tone of this thjit arrested Klfrida's feeling of luilf-penitencc, and armed lier instantly. Wliatever desire she had felt to assert and indulf];o her individuality at any expense, in her own attitude there had ])een the consciousness of what they owed one another. She had defied it perhaps, but it Juid heen th' re. In this it ^vas ignored ; Janet had gone a stip further — her tone expressed the blankest indiU'er- enee. Elfrida drew herself np. *' Thanks, it was delightful. An escape from London always is, as you say. Unfortunately, one is obliged to come back." Janet laughed lightly. ** Oh, I don't know that I go so far as that. I rather like coming back, too. And you have missed one or two things, you know, by being away." "The Lord IMayor's show?" asked Elfrida, angry that she could not restrain the curl of her lip. *' Oh dear no ! That conu'S ofT in November, don't you remember ? Things at the theatres chiefly. Oh, Jessie, Jessie ! " she went on, shaking her head at the maid, who had come in with the tray. ** You're a quarter of an hour late with tea. Make it for us now where you are, and, remember that Miss Bell doesn't like cream." The maid blushed, and smiled under the easy reproof and did as she was told. Janet chatted on pleasantly about the one or two first nights she had seen, and Elfrida felt for a moment that the situation was hopelessly changed. She had an intense, unreasonable indignation. The maid had scarcely left the room when her blind search for means of retaliation succeeded. ** But one is not wholly without diversions in the provinces. I had, for instance, the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Cardiff." 222 A DAUGHrER OF TO-DAY. il(|, HH 111 'ill. V;;; *' Oh yes, I bearil of that," Janet returned, smiling. " My father thought that we were being improperly robbed of your society, and went to try to persuade you to return, didn't he ! I told him I thought it was a shocking liberty ; but you ought to forgive him — on the ground of his dis- appointment." The cup Elfrida held shook in its ijaucer, and she put it down to silence it. Janet did not know, did not suspect, then. Well, she should. Her indifference was too maddening. *' Under the circumstances, it was not a liberty at all. Mr. Cardiff wanted me to come back to marry him." There, it was done, and as brutally as possible. Her vanity was avenged — she could have her triumphs too ! And instant with its gratification came the cold recoil of herself upon herself — a sense of shame, a longing to undo. Janet took the announcement with the very slightest lifting of her eyebrows. She bent her head and stirred her teacup meditatively, then looked gravely at Elfrida. " Ileally," she said. ** And may I ask — whether you have come back for that ? " " I— I hardly know," Elfrida faltered. ** You know what I think about marriage — there is so much to consider." ''Doubtless?" Janet returned. Her head was throbbing with the question why this girl would not go — go — (JO ! How had she the hardihood to stay another instant ? At any moment her father might come in, and then how could she support the situation? But all she added was, "1 am afraid it is a matter which we cannot very well discuss." Then a bold thought came to her, and without weighing it, she put it into words. The answer might put everything definitely — so A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 221 " " me that honour ? " *' Characteristic ! " thought Kendal, grinning, as he tore up the note. ** She can't think why ! But I'm glad the Academy doesn't stick in her pretty throat; I was afraid it would. It's the potent influence of the Private Yiew." 234 A DAUGHTER OV TO-DAY. rt 1 ;, m ■*■' IIo wrote immediately in joyful pjratitiulc to make an appointment for the next day, went to work vigorously about his preparations, and when he had linishcd, smoked a series of pipes to calm the turbulence of his anticipations. As a neigh- bouring clock struck five ho put on his coat. Janet must know about this new idea of his ; ho longed to tell her, to talk about it over the old- fashioned Spode cup of tea she would give him —Janet was a connoisseur in tea. Ho realized as ho went downstairs how much of the pleasure of his life was centering in these occasional afternoon gossips with her, in the mingled delight of her interest and the fragrance and the comfort of that half-hour over the Spode teacup. The association brought him a reminiscence that sent him smiling to the nearest confectioner's shop, where he ordered a supply of Italian cakes, for that would make ample provision for the advent of half a dozen unexpected visitors to the studio. He would have to do his best with afternoon sittings; Elfrida was not available in the morning, and he thought compassionately that his sitter must not be starved. ** I will feed her first," he thought iionically, remembering her keen childish enjoyment of sugared things. " She will pose all the better for some tea," and he walked on to Kensington Square. CHAPTER XXX. *' Janet," said Lawrence Cardiff a week later at breakfast, "the Halifaxes have decided upon their American tour. I saw Lady Halifax last night, and she tells me they sail on the twenty-first. They want you to go with them. Do you feel disposed to do it?" A DAUGIITEn OF T0-1)AV. 235 ratitudc to ly, went to , and when pes to calm is a neigli- liis coat. of liis ; ho er the old- l give him le realized 10 pleasure occasional led delight ho comfort cup. The 3 that sent ler's shop, cakes, for the advent ;he studio. afternoon ) morning, his sitter first," he in childish will pose svalked on i later at ipon their ist night, enty-first. you feel ^fr. Cardifif looked at his daughter with eyes from which the hardness that entered them weeks hefore in the Temple Courts had never quite dis- appeared. His face was worn and thin, its delicacy hud bharpened, and he carried ahout with him an hahitual ahstraction. Janet, regarding him day after day in the light of her secret knowledge, gave herself up to an inward storm of anger and grief and anxiety. Elfrida's name had heen tacitly dropped hetween them, but to Janet's sensitivenesH she was constantly and painfully to be reckoned with in their common life. Lawrence CardilT's moods were unaccountable to his daughter except by Elfrida's influence. She notice I bitterly that his old evenness of temper, the gay placidity that nuide so delightful a basis for their joint happiness, had absolutely disappeared. Instead she found her father either irritable or despondent, or in- spired by a gaiety which she had no hand in producing, and which took no account of her. That was the rerl pain; Janet was keenly dis- tressed at the little drama of suffering that un- folded itself daily before her, but her disapproval of its cause very much blunted her sense of its seriousness. She had besides, a grown-up daughter's repulsion and impatience for a pa- rental love affair, and it is doubtful whether siie would have brought her father's to a happy con- clusion without a very severe struggle, if she had possessed the power to do it. But this exclusion gave her a keener pang. She had shared so much with him before, had been so important to him always! And now he could propose with perfect equanimity that she should go to America with the Halifaxes. ** But you could not get away by the twenty- first," she returned, trying to take it for granted ''lat the idea included him. 236 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. t Ki '*0b, I don't propose going," Mr. Cardiff re- turned from behind his newspaper. ** But, daddy, they intend to be away for a year." ** About that. Lady FaHfax has arranged a capital itinerary. They mean to come back by India." "And pray what would become of you all by yourself for a year, sir ? " asked Janet, brightly. "Besides, we were always going to do that trip together." She had a stubborn inward d extermina- tion not to recognize this difference that had sprung up between them. It was only a phase, she told herself, of her father's miserable feeling just now ; it would last another week, another fortnight, and then tilings would be as they had been before. She would not let herself believe in it, hurt as it might. Mr. Cardiff lowered his paper. "Don't think of that," he said over the top of it. " There is really no occasion. I shall get on very well. There is always the club, you know% and this is an oppor- tunity you ought not to miss." Janet said nothing, and Lawrence Cardiff' went back to his newspaper. She tried to go on with her breakfast, but scalding tears stood in her eyes, and she could not swallow. She was unable to command herself far enough to ask to be excused ; and she rose abruptly and left the room with her face turned carefully away. Cardiff followed her with his eyes, and gave an uncomprehending shrug. He looked at his watch ; there was still half an hour before he need leave the house. It brought him an uncomfortable thought that he might go and comfort Janet; it was evident that something he had said had hurt her. She was growing absurdly hypersensitive. He dismissed the idea — Heaven only knew into what complications it might lead them. He spent A t)AU(UITKR OF TO-DAY. -J/ !terinina- the time instead in a restless walk up and down the room, revolving whether Elfrida Bell would or would not he hrought to reconsider her refusal to let him take her to *' Faust," that night — he never could depend upon her. Janet had not seen John Kendal since the after- noon he came to her, radiant with his intention of jnitting all of Elfrida's charm upon canvas, full of its intrinsic difficulties, eager for her sympathy, depending on her enthusiastic interest. She had disappointed him ; she did her hest, but the sympathy and enthusiasm and interest would not come. She could not tell him why; her broken friendship was still sacred to her for what it had been. Besides, explanations were impossible. So she listened and approved with a strained smile, and led him, w^ith a persistence he did not under- stand, to talk of other things. He went away, chilled and baffled, and he had not come again. Slie knew that he was painting with every nerve tense and eager, in oblivion of all but his work and the face that inspired it. Elfrida, he told her, was to give him three sittings a week of an hour each, and he complained of the scantiness of the dole. She could conjure up those hours, all too short for his delight in his model and his work. Surely it would not be long now ; Elfrida cared, by her own confession. Janet felt dully there could now be no doubt of that : and since Elfrida cared, what could be more certain than the natural issue? She fought with herself to accept it, she spent hours in seeking for the indifference that might come of accustoming herself to the fact. And when she thought of her father, she hoped it might be soon. There came a day when Lawrence Cardiff gave his daughter the happiness of being almost his other self asain. He had come downstairs with a r » 4 1% }«> ^.' 238 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. headache and a touch of fever, and all day long he let her take care of him submissively, with the old pleasant gratitude that seemed to re-establish their comradeship. She had a joyful, secret v^onder at the change, it was so sudden and so complete ; but their sympathetic relation reasserted itself naturally and at once, and she would not let herself question it. In the evening he sent her to his room for a book of his, and when she brought it to him, where he lay upon the lounge in the library, he detained her a moment. *' You mustn't attempt to read without a lamp now, daddy," slie said, touching his forehead lightly with her lips; "you will damage your poor old eyes." " Don't be impertinent about my poor old eyes, miss," he returned, smiling. ** Janet, there is something I think you ought to kno ^'' *'Yes, daddy." The girl felt herself turning rigid. " I want you to mako friends with Elfrida again. I have every reason to believe — at all events some reason to believe — that she will become my wife." Her knowing already made it simpler to say, '* Has — has she promised, daddy ? " **Not exactly; but I think she will in the end, Janet." His tone was very confident. "And of course you must forgive each other any little heart- burnings there may have been between you." Any little heart-burnings ! Janet had a quiver- ing moment of indecision. " Oh, daddy ! she won't ! she won't ! " she cried tumultuously, and hurried out of the room. Cardiff lay still, smiling pityingly. What odd ideas women managed to get into their heads about one another ! Janet thought Elfrida would refuse her overtures if she made them. How little she knew Elfrida — his just, candid, generous Elfrida ! A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 239 Janet flung herself upon her bed anc. faced the situation, dry-eyed, with burning cheeks. She could always face a situation when it admitted the possibility of anything being done, when there w^as a chance for resolution and action. Practical difficulties nerved her ; it was only before the blankness of a problem of pure abstractness that she quailed, such '\ problem as the complication of her relation to John Kendal and to Elfrida Be.'l. She had shrunk from that for months ; had put it away habitually in the furthest corner of her consciousness, and had done her best to make it stay there. She discovered how sore its fret liad been only with the relief she felt when she sim- plified it at a stroke that afternoon on which everything came to an end between her and Elfrida. Since the burden of obligation their relation im- posed had been removed, Janet had analyzed her friendship, and had found it wanting in many ways to which she had been wilfully blind before. The criticism she had always silenced came forward and spoke boldly ; and she recognized the impossi- bility of a whole-hearted intimacy where a need for enforced dumbness existed. All the girl's charm she acknowledged with a heart wrung by the thought that it was no longer for her. She dwelt separately and long upon Elfrida's keen sense of justice ; her impulsive generosity ; her refined consideration for other people ; the delicacy of some of her personal instincts ; her absolute sincerity toward herself and the world ; her passionate exaltation of what was to her the ideal in art. Janet exacted from herself the last jot of justice toward Elfrida in all these things ; and then she listened, as she had not done before, to the voice that spoke to her from the very depths of h^^v being, it seemed, and said, ** Nevertheless, no ! ' She only half comprehended, and the words 240 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 41 fa ' % brought her a sadness that would be long, she knew, in leaving her ; but she listened and agreed. And now^ it seemed to her that she must ignore it again; that the wise, the necessary, the ex- pedient thing to do was to go to Elfrida and re- establish, if she could, the old relation, cost what it might. She must take up her burden of obliga- tion again in order that it might be mutual. Then she would have the right to beg Elfrida to stop playing fast and loose with her father, and act decisively. If Elfrida only knew, only realized the difference it made, and how little right she had to control at her whim the happiness of any human being And Janet brought a strong hand to bear upon her indignation, for she had resolved to go, and to go that night. Lawrence Cardiff bade his daughter an early good night after their unusually pleasant dinner. "Do you think you can do it?" he asked her before he went. Janet started at the question, for they had not mentioned Elfrida again, even remotely. " I think I can, daddy," she answered him gravely, and they separated. She looked at her watch. 3y half-past nine she could be in Essex Court. Yes, Miss Bell was in. She could go straight up, Mrs. Jordan informed her ; and she mounted the last flight of stairs with a beating heart. Her mission was important — oh, so important ! She had compromised with her conscience in planning it ; and now if it should fail ! Her hand trembled as she knocked. In answer to Elfrida's '' Come in ! " she pushed the door slowly open. " It is I— Janet," she said. ** :Mav I '? " "But of course." A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 241 itened and Elfrida rose from a confusion of sheets of manuscript upon the table, and came forward holding out her hand, with an odd gleam in her eyes and an amused, slightly excited smile about her lips. '*How do you do?" she said, with rather ostentatiously supposed wonder. ** Please sit down, but not in that chair ; it is not quite reliable. This one, I think, is better. How are — how are you ? " The slight emphasis she placed on the last word was airy and regardless. Janet would have preferred to have been met by one of the old affectations. She would have felt herself taken more sincerely. **It is very late to come, and I interrupt you," she said awkwardly, glancing at the manuscript. ** Not at all ! I am very happy " "But of course I had a special reason for coming. It is serious enough, I think, to justify me," " What can it be ? " ** Don't, Elfrida ! " Janet cried passionately. '* Listen to me. I have come to try to make things right again between us ; to ask you to forgive me for speaking as I — as I did about your writing that day. I am sorry — I am, indeed ! " ** I don't quite understand. You ask me to forgive you ; but what question is there of forgive- ness ? You had a perfect right to your opinion ; and I was glad to have it, at least from you, frankly." **But it offended you, Elfrida. It is what is accountable for the — the rupture between us." *' Perhaps; but not because it hurt my feel- ings," Elfrida returned scornfully, "in the ordinary sense. It offended me truly, but in quite another way. In what you said you put me on a different B ill ill 242 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. e:;i r m 11 plane from yourself in the matter of artistic execution. Very well ; I am content to stay there — in your opinion. But why this talk of for- pjivenees? Neither of us can alter anything. Only," Elfrida breathed quickly, "be sure that I will not be accepted by you upon those terms." " That wasn't what I meant in the least." " What cbe could you have meant? And more than that," Elfrida went on rapidly — her phrases had the patness of formed conclusions — ** what you said betrayed a totally different conception of art, as it expresses itself in the nudity of things, from the one I supposed you to hold, and, if you will pardon me for saying so, a much lower one. It seems to me that we cannot hold together there, that our aims and creeds are different, and that we have been comrades under false pretences. Perhaps we are both to blame for that; but we cannot change it, or the fact that we have found it out." Janet bit her lip. The "nudity of things" brought her an instant's impulse toward hysteria — it was so characteristic a touch of candid ex- aggeration. But her need for reflection helped her to control it. Elfrida had taken a different ground from the one she expected ; it was less sii:ple, and a mere apology, however sincere, would not meet it. But there was one thing more which she could say, and with an effort she said it. *' Elfrida, suppose that, even as an expression of opinion — putting it aside as an expression of feeling toward you — what I said that day was not quite sincere. Suppose that I was not quite mistress of myself — I would rather not tell you why " " Is that true ? " asked Elfrida, directly. "Yes, it is true. For the moment I wanted A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. of artistic stay there Ik of for- anything. ;ure that I terms." ist." And more er phrases IS — ** what Qception of of things, md, if you lower one. ither there, i, and that pretences. ;t; but we aave found >f things " d hysteria 3andid ex- on helped a different was less sincere, one thing an effort expression ression of day was not quite t tell you y- I wanted more than anything else in the world to break with you. I took the surest means." The other girl regarded Janet steadfastly. **But if it is only a question of the ch'i/n'c of your sincerity," she i)er8isted, '*I cannot see that the situation alters much." " I was not altogether responsible — believe me, Elfrida. I don't remember now what I said, but — but I am afraid it must have taken all its colour from my feeling." "Of course" — Elfrida hesitated, and her tone showed her touched. **I can understand that what I told you about — Mr. Cardiff must have been a shock. For the moment I became an animal, and turxied upon you, upon you who had been to me the very soul of kindness. I have hated myself for it — you may be sure of that." Janet Cardiff had a moment's inward struggle, and yielded. She would let Elfrida believe it had been that. After all, it was partly true, and her lips refused absolutely to say the rest. *' Yes, it must have hurt you, more perhaps than I can guess." Elfrida' s eyes grew wet and her voice shook. " But I can't understand your retaliating that icay if you didn't believe what you said. And if you believed it, what more is there to say ? " Janet felt herself possessed by an intense sensa- tion of playing for stakes, unusual, exciting, and of some personal importance. She did not pause to regard her attitude from any other point of view; she succumbed at once, not without enjoy- ment, to the necessity for diplomacy. Under its rush of suggestions, her conscience was only vaguely restive. To-morrow it would assert itself — unconsciously she put oft' paying attention to it until then. Elfrida must come back to her. For the moment the need was to choose her plea. 244 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. f3 ■"* f' I -C. to^ ,. 3 fS "It seems to me," she said slowly, "that there is something between us which is indestructible, Frida. We didn't make it, and we can't unmake it. For my part, I think it is worth our pre- serving, but I don't believe we could lose it if we tried. You may put me away from you for any reason that seems good to you, as far as you like, but so long as we both live, there will be that something, recognized or unrecognized. All wo can do arbitrarily is to make a joy or a pain of it. Haven't you felt that ? " The other girl looked at her uncertainly. " I have felt it sometimes," ebe said, **but now it Kccms to me that I can never be sure that there is not some qualification in it — some hidden flaw." ** Don't you think it's worth making the best of ? Can't we make up our minds to have a little charity for the flaws ? " Elfrida shook her bead. ** I don't think I am capable of a friendship that demands charity," she said. ** And yet, whether we close each other's lips or not, we shall always have things to say, the one to the other, in this world. Is it to be dumbness between us ? " There was a moment's silence in the room — a crucial moment, it seemed to both of them. Elfrida sat against the table with her elbows among its litter of paged manuscript, her face hidden in her hands. Janet rose and took a step or two toward her. Then she paused, and looked at the little bronze image on the table instead. Elfrida was suddenly shaken by deep, indrawn, silent sobs. *' It is finished, then ? " Janet said softly. ** We are to separate for always, Buddha, she and I. She will not know any more of me, nor I of her ; it will be, so far as we can make it, like the grave. A DAUGIITEII OF TO-DAY. 245 'that there estructiblc, I't unmake li our pre- lose it if m you for far as you vill be that d. All we pain of it. ainly. ** I but now it lat there is en flaw." [g the best lave a little ihink I am i charity," )ther's lips ay, the one dumbness e room— a of them, ler elbows her face took a step and looked le instead. , indrawn, ftly. '*We she and I. • I of her ; the grave. You must belong to a strange people, Buddha, always to smile ! " She spoke evenly, quietly, with restraint, and still she did not look at the convulsively silent figure in the chair. ** But I am glad you will always keep that face for her, Buddha; I hope the world will too — our world that is sometimes more bitter than vju can understand. And I say good-bye to you, for to her I cannot say it." And she turned to go. Elfrida stumbled to her feet and hurried to the door. ** No," she said, holding it fast. ** No ; you must not go that way — I owe you too much after all. We will — we will make the best of it." " Not on that ground," Janet answered gravely. ** Neither your friendship nor mine is purchase- able, I hope." *'No, no; that was bad. On any ground you like. Only stay a little ; let us find ourselves again." Elfrida forced a smile into what she said, and Janet let herself be drawn back to the chair. It was nearly midnight when she found herself again in her cab, driving through the empty lamp-lit Strand toward Kensington. She had in'evailed, and now she had to scrutinize her methods. That necessity urged itself beyond her power to turn away from it, and left her sick at heart. She had prevailed — Elfrida, she believed, was hers again. They had talked as candidly as might be of her father. Elfrida had promised nothing, but she would bring matters to an end, Janet knew she would, in a day or two, when she had had time to think how intolerable the situation would be if she didn't. Janet remem- bered with wonder, however, how little Elfrida seemed to realize that it need make any difference between them compared with other things, and what a trivial concession she thought it beside 246 A DAUGIITEll OF TO-DAY. the restoration of the privileges of her friendship. The girl asked herself drearily how it would be possible that she should ever forget the frank cynical surprise with which Elfiida had received her entreaty, based on the fact of her father's unrest and tho wretchedness of his false hopes — " You have your success ; does it really matter — so very much ! " ! J CHAPTER XXXI. " To-day, remember ! You promised that I should see it to-day," Elfrida reminded Kendal, dropping instantly into the pose they had jointly decided on. "I know I'm late; but you will not punish n\e by another postponement, will you ? " Kendal looked sternly at his watch. *'A good twertty minutes, mademoiselle," he returned ag- grievedly. "It would be only justice — poetic justice — to say no ; but I think you may, if we get on to-daj'." He was alread}^ at work, turning from the texture of the rounded throat which occupied him before she came in, to the more berious problem of the nuances of expression in the face. It was a whim of his, based partly upon a cautiousness of which he was hardly aware, that she should not see the portrait in its earlier stages, and she had made a great concession of this. As it grew before him, out of his consciousness, under his hand, he became more and more aware that he would prefer to post- pone her seeing it, for reasons which he would not pause to define. Certainly, they were not con- nected with any sense of having failed to do justice to his subject. Kendal felt an exulting mastery over it which was the most intoxicating sensation A DAITOIITKR OF TO-DAY. 247 his work had ever hrought him. lie had, as lie painted, a silent, hroodinj^ triumph in his manipu- lation, in his control. He Rave himf.olf up to the delight of his insight, the po wtr of his reproduction, and to the intense satisfaction of knowin;.^ thao out of the two there grew something of more than usually keen intrinsic interest within the wide creed of his art. He worked with every nerve tense upon his conception of what he saw, which so excluded other considerations that now and then in answer to some word of hers that distracted him, he spoke to her almost roughly. At which Pilfrida, with a little smile of forgiving comprehension, ohcdientl}^ kept silence. She saw the artist in him dominant, and she exulted for his sake. It was to her delicious to he the medium of his inspiration, delicious and fit and sweetly acceptable. And thoy had agreed upon a charming pose. Presently Kendal lowered his brush impatiently. *' Talk to me a little," he said resentfully, ignoring his usual preference that she should not talk be- cause what she said had always loower to weaken the concentration of his energy. ** There is a little muteness about the lips. Am I very unreason- able ? But you don't know what a difHcult creature you are." She threw up her chin in one of her bewitching w^ays and laughed. *' I wouldn't be too simple," she returned. She looked at him with the light of her laughter still in her eyes, and went on, " I know I must be difficult — tremendously difficult — because I, whom you see as an individual, am so many people. Phases of character have an attrac- tion for me. I wear one to-day and another to- morrow. It is very flippant, but you see I'm honest about it. And it must make me difficult to paint, because it can be only by accident that 1 am the same person twice." 248 A daugiitp:r of to-day. It \l^ m i» Without answering, Kendal made two or three rapid strokes. ** That's better," he said, as if to himself. '* Go on talking, please. What did you say?" *' It doesn't seem to matter much," she answered, with a little pout. " I said, * Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool ? ' " **No, you didn't," returned Kendal, as they laughed together. ** You said something about being like Cleopatra, a creature of infinite variety, didn't you ? — about having a great many dis- guises " — absently. ** But " Kendal fell into the absorbed silence of his work again, leaving the sentence unfinished. He looked up at her with a long, close, almost intimate scrutiny, under which, and his careless words, she blushed hotly. ** Then I hope you have chosen my most be- coming disguise," she cried imperiously, jumping up. ** Now, if you please, I will see." She stood beside the canvas with her eyes upon his face, waiting for a sign from him. lie, feeling without knowing definitely why, that a critical moment had come between them, rose and stepped back a pace or two, involuntarily pulling himself together to meet what she might say. "Yes, you may look," he said, seeing that she would not turn her head without his word; and waited. Elfrida took three or four steps beyond the easel and faced it. In the first instant of her gaze her face grew radiant. *' Ah ! " she said softly. " How unconscionably you must have flattered me ! I can't be so pretty as that ! " A look of relief shot across Kendal's face. *' I'm glad you like it," he said britlly. " It's a capital pose." (. A DAUailTKll OF TO-DAY. 249 :wo or thrco aid, as if to Jiat did you lie answered, black sheep, lal, as tlicy thing about nite variety, many dis- of his work He Jooked st intimate 3 words, she y most be- y, jumi)ing • eyes upon He, feeling a critical nd stepped ng himself that she ivord; and 1 the easel gaze her iscionably so pretty al's face. '' It's a The first thing that could possibly bo observed about the portrait was its almost dramatic love- liness. The head was turned a little, and the eyes regarded something distant, with a half-wishful, lialf-deprecating dreaminess. The lips were plain- tively courageous, and the line of the lifted chin and throat helped the pathetic eyes and annihilated the heaviness of the other features. It was as if the face made an exi)ressive effort to subdue a vitality which might otherwise have been aggressive, but while the full value of this effect of spiritual repose was caught and rendered, Kendal had done his work in a vibrant significant chord of colour that strove for the personal force beneath, and brought it out. It was this, the personal force, that rewarded a second glance. Elfrida dropped into the nearest chair, clasped her knees in her hands, and bending forward earnestly regarded the canvas with a silence that presently became perceptible. It seemed to Kendal at first, as he stood talking to her of its techni- calities, that she tested the worth of every stroke ; then he became aware that she was otherwise occupied, and that she did not hear him. lie paused, and stepped over to where, standing be- hind her chair, he shared her point of view. Kveii the exaltation of his success did not prevent his impatient wonder why his relation with this girl must always be so uncomfortable. Then, as he stood in silence, looking with her, it seemed that he saw with her; and the thing that he had done revealed itself to him for the first time fully, convincingly, with no appeal. He looked at it with curious painful interest, but without remorse, even in the knowledge that she saw it too, and suffered. He realized exultingly, that he had done better work than he thought ; he might repent later, but for the moment he could 250 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. c:;> r I 1 t ill . feel nothin J but tbat. As to the girl before him, she was simply the source and the reason of it ; he was particularly glad he had happened to come across her. lie had echoed her talk of disguises, and his words embodied the unconscious perception under which he worked. He had selected a disguise, and, as she wished, a becoming one. But he had not used it fairly, seriously. He had thrown it over her face like a veil, if anything could be a veil which rather revealed than hid, rnUier emphasized than softened, the human secret of the face under- neath. He realized now that he had been guided by a broader perception, by deeper instincts, in painting that. It was the real Elfrida. There was still a moment before she spoke. He wondered vaguely how she would take it, and he was conscious of an anxiety to get it over. At last she rose and faced him, with one hand, that trembled, resting on the back of the chair. Her face wore a look that was almost profound, and there was an acknowledgment in it, a degree of submission, which startled him. *' So that is how you have read me," she said, looking again at the portrait. ** Oh, I do not find fault ; I would like to, but I dare not. I am not sure enough that you are wrong; no, I am too sure that you are right. I am indeed very much preoccupied with myself. I have always been — 1 shall always be. Don't think I shall reform after this moral shock, as people in books do; 1 am what I am. But I acknowledge that an egotist doesn't make an agreeable picture, however charm- ingly you apologize for her. It is a personality of stone, isn't it — implacable, unchangeable ? 1 have often felt that." Kendal was incapable of denying a word of what she said. "If it is any comfort to yju to know A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 2;i Id be a veil a degree of it," lie ventured, *Miardly any one will see in it what you — and I — see." "Yes," she said, with a smile ; *' that's true. I shan't mind its going to the Academy." She sat down again and looked fixedly at the picture, her chin propped in her hand. ** Don't you feel," she said, looking up at him with a little childish gesture of confidence, *' as if you had stolen something from me ? " ** Yes," Kendal declared honestly, " I do. I've taken something you didn't intend me to have." " Well, I give it you — it is yours quite freely and ungrudgingly. Don't feel that way any more. You have a right to your divination," she added bravely. "I would not withhold it if I could. Only — I hope you find somcihhui good in it. I think, myself, there is something ? " Her look was a direct interrogation, and Kendal flinched before it. ** Dear creature," he murmured, "you are very true to yourself." "And to you,'* she pleaded, " — always to you, too ! Has there ever been anything but the clearest honesty between us ? Ah, my friend, that's valuable ; there are few people who inspire it." She had risen again, and he found himself shame- facedly holding her hand. His conscience roused itself and smote him mightily. Had there always been this absolute single-mindedness between them? " You make it necessary for me to tell you," he said slowly, " that there is one thing between us that you do not know. I saw you at Cheynemoutli, on the stage." " I know you did," she smiled at him ; "Janet Car lifif let it out by accident. I suppose you came, like Mr. CardiiY, because you — disapproved. Then why didn't you remonstrate with me '? I've often 252 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. Mt i % (9 < wondered." Elfrida spoke softly, dreamily. Her happiness seemed very near. Her self-sm-render was so perfect, and liis miderstanding, as it always had heen, so sweet, that the illusion of the moment was cruelly perfect. She raised her eyes to Kendal's with an abandonment of tenderness in them that quickened his heart-heats, man that he was. ** Tell me, do jjou want me to give it up — my hook — last night I finished it — my amhition ? " She '^as ready with her sacrifice, or for the instant ohe heHeved herself to he, and it was not wholly without an effort that he put it away. On the pretence of picking up his palette knife, he relinquished her hand. ** It is not a matter upon which I have permitted myself a definite opinion," he said, more coldly than he intended, ** hut for your own sake I should advisO it." For her own sake ! The room seemed full of the echo of his words. A blank look crossed the girl's face ; she turned instinctively away from him, and picked up her hat. She put it on and buttoned her gloves without the faintest knowledge of what she was doing; her senses were wholly occupied with the comprehension of the collapse that had taken place within her. It was the single moment of her life when she difi'ered in any important way from the girl Kendal had painted. Her self-consciousness was a wreck, she no longer controlled it ; it tossed at the mercy of her emotion. Her face was very white and painfully empty, her eyes wandered uncertainly round the room, un- willing above all things to meet Kendal's again. She had forgotten about the portrait. "I will go, then," she said simjjly, without look- ing at him, and, this time with a flash, Kendal comprehended again. He held the door open for her mutely, with the keenest pang his pleasant Y. 3amily. Her lelf-surrender , as it always ' the moment )s to Kendars n them that was. ''Tell y hook — last , or for the lI it was not t awa3\ Oi^ Ite knife, he VQ permitted more coldly ike I should tned full of crossed the away from t it on and t knowledge .vere wholly ;he collapse s the single ed in any id painted. J no longer er emotion, empty, her room, un- lal's again. thout look- 3h, Kendal )r open for s pleasant A DAUGHTEIl OF TO-DAY. 253 life had ever brought him, and she passed out and down the dingy stairs. On the first landing she paused and turned. *' I will never be different ! " she said aloud, as if he were still beside her — **I will never be different ! " She swiftly unbuttoned one of her gloves and fingered the curious silver ring that gleamed un- certainly on her hand in the shabby light of the staircase. The alternative within it, the alterna- tive like a bit of brown sugar, offered itself very suggestively at the moment. She looked round at the dingy place she stood in, and in imagination threw herself across the lowest step. Even at that miserable instant she was aw^are of the strong, the artistic, the effective thing to do. "And when ho came down he might tread on me ! " she said to herself, with a very real shudder. ** I wush I had the courage. But no ; it might hurt, after all. I am a coward too." She had an overwhelming realization of im- potence in every direction. It came upon her like a burden ; under it she grew sick and faint. At the door she stumbled, and she was hardly sure of her steps to her cab, which was draw^n up by the kerb-stone, and in which she presently went blindly home. By ten o'clock that night she had herself, in a manner, in hand again. Her eyes were still wide and bitter and the baffled uncomprehending look had not quite gone out of them, but a line or two of cynical acceptance had drawn themselves round her lips. She had sat so long and so quietly regarding the situation that she became consc'ous of the physical discomfort of stiffened limbs. She leaned back in her chair and put her feet on another and lighted a cigarette. " No, Buddha," she said as if to a confessor, ** don't think it of me. It was a lie, a pose to 254 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. r '1 '•»''4f tampt liiiii on. I would never have given it ii[) — never ! It is more to me — I am almost sure — than lie is. It is part of my soul, Buddha, and my lovo lor him — oh, I cannot tell ! " She threw the cigarette away from her and stared at the smiling image with heavy eyes in silence. Then she went on. '*But 1 always tell you everything, little bronze god, and I won't keep back even this. There was a moment when I would have let him take me in his arms and hold me close, close to him. And I wish he had — I should have had it to remember. Bah ! Why is my face hot ? I might as well be ashamed of wanting my dinner ! " Again she dropped into silence, and when next she spoke her whole face had hardened. ** But no! He thinks that he has read me finally, that he has done with me, that I no longer count ! He will marry some red-and-white cow of an Englishwoman who will accept herself in the light of a reproductive agent and do her duty by him accordingly. As I would not — no ! Good heavens, no ! So perhaps it is as well, for I will go on loving him of course, and some day he will come back to me, in his shackles, and together, what- ever we do, we will make no vulgar mess of it. In the meantime, Buddha, I will smile, like you. "And there is always this, which is the best of me. You agree, don't you, that it is the best of me ? " She lingered the manuscript in her lap. "All my power, all my joy, the quintessence of my life ! I think I shall be angry if it has a common success, if the people like it too well. I only want recognition for it — recognition and acknowledgment and admission, i want George Meredith to ask to be introduced to me ! " She made a rather pitiful effort to smile. ** And that, Buddha^ is what will happen." h • A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ^55 v'en it up — sure — thiiii .ncl my love and stared in silence. ittle bronze There was n take me him. And remember, as well bo when next me finally, iger count ! ;osv of an n the light ty by him d heavens, kill go on will come ler, what- less of it. ike you. he best of the bcht n her lap. jssence of it has a well. I tion and it George ! " She Vnd that, Mechanically she lighted another cigarette and turned over her first rough pages — a copy had gone to liattray — looking for passages she had wrought most to her satisfaction. They left her cold, as she read them, but she was not unaware that the reason of this lay elsewhere ; and when she went to bed she put the packet under her pillow and slei^t a little better for the comfort of it. CIIAPTEll XXXII. In the week that followed Janet Cardiff's visit to Elfrida's attic these two y ung women went through a curious reapproachment. At every step it was tentative, but at every step it was also enjoyable. They made sacrifices to meet on most days ; they took long walks together, and arranged lunches at out-of-the-way restaurants ; they canvassed eagerly such matters of interest in the world that supremely attracted them as had been lying undiscussed be- tween them until now. The intrinsic pleasure that was in each for the other had been enhanced by deprivation, and they tasted it again with a keen- ness of savoui which was a surprise to both of them. Their mutual understanding of many things, their common point of view, reasserted itself more strongly than ever as a mutual pos- session ; they could not help perceiving its value. Janet made a fairly successful attempt to drown her sense of insincerity in the recognition. She, Janet, was conscious of a deliberate effort to widen and deepen the sympathy between them. An obscure desire to make reparation, she hardly knew for what, combined itself with a great long- ing to sec their friendship the altogether bcautilul 2^6 A DAUGHTER OF TO-PAY. ei i *» -i and perfect t^ing its mirage v/as, and pushed her on to seize every opportunity to fortify the place she had retaken. Elfrlda had never found her so considerate, so appreciative, so amusing, so prodigal of her gay ideas, so much inclined to go upon her knees at shrines before which she sometimes stood and mocked. ^hf> had a special happiness in availing herself of an opportunity which resulted in Elfrida's receiving a letter from the editor of the St, Gcorf/c's, asking her for two or three articles on the American Colony in Paris; and only very occasionally she recognized, with a subtle thrill of disgust, that she was employing diplomacy in every action, every word, almost every look which concerned her friend. She asked herself then despairingly how it could last, and what good could come of it, where upon fifty considerations, armed with whips, drove her on. Perhaps the most potent of these was the con- sciousness that in spite of it all, she was not wholly successful, that as between Elfrida and herself things were not entirely as they had been. They were cordial, they were mutually appreciative, they had moments of expansive intercourse; but Janet could not disguise to herself the fact that there was a difference — the difference between fit and fusion. The impression was not a strong one, but she half suspected her friend now and then of intently watching her ; and she could not help observing how reticent the girl had become upon certain subjects that touched her personally. The actress in Elfrida was nevertheless constantly supreme, and interfered with the trustworthiness of any single impression. She could not resist the pardoning role; she played it intermittently, with a pretty impulsiveness that would have amused Miss Cardiff more if it had irritated her less. For A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ^S7 pushed her ■f the place sidcrate, so of her gay 3r knees at stood and in availing in Elfrida's S7. Gcorrjc's, le American donally she st, that she jtion, every d her friend, ow it could , whereupon bips, drove as the con- 3 not wholly and herself )een. They ppreciative, course; but 18 fact that between fit strong one, V and then Id not help come upon ally. The constantly tworthiness not resist rmittently, ave amused less. For the certainty that Elfrida would be her former self for three days together, Janet would have dispensed gladly with the little Jiohcmian dinner in Essex Court in honour of her book, or the violets chat sometimes dropped out of Elfrida's notes, or oven the sudden, but premeditated, occasional offer of Elfrida's lips. Meaiiwhile the Ilalifaxes were urging their Western trip upon her. Lady Halifax declare.', roundly that she was looking wretchedly. Miss Halifax suggested playfully the possilnUty of an American heroine for her next novel. Janet, repelling both publicly, admitted both privately. She felt worn out physically, and when she thought of producing another book her brain responded with a helpless negative. She had been turning lately with dogged conviction to her work as the only solace life was likely to offer her, and any- thing that hinted at loss of power filled her with blank dismay. She was desperately weary, and she wanted to forget, desiring besides some sort of stimulus as a ilagging swimmer desires a rope. One more reason came and took possession of her common sense. Between her father and Elfrida she felt herself a complication, li she could bring herself to consent to her own removal, the situa- tion, she could not help seeing, would be consider- ably simplified. She read plainly in her father that the finality Elfrida promised had not yet been given ; doubtless an opportunity had not yet occurred, and Janet was willing to concede that the circumstances might require a rather special opportunity- When it should occur, she recognized that delicacy, decency almost, demanded that she should be out of the way. She shrank miserably from the prospect of being a daily familiar looker- on at the spectacle of Lawrence Cardiff's pain, and she had a kno^\'ledJ■e that there would be 2,SS A 11AUGIITER OF TO-PAY. ei u i hi M somehow an aggravation of it in her person. In a year everything wouhl mend itself, more or less, she hclieved dully, and tried to feel. Her father would ho the same again, with his old fond humour and criticism of her enthusiasms, his old interest in things and people, his old comradeship for her. John Kendal would have married Elfrida Bell — what an idyl they would make of life together ! — and she, Janet, would have accepted the situation. Her interest in the prospective pleasures on which Lady Halifax expatiated was slight ; she was ohligcd to spoci'late upon its rising, which she did with a ' th confidence she could command. She decline,^ .. lutely to read Bryce's "American Common aiti'." or Miss Bird's account of the Eocky MountaiiiL, or anyhody's travels in the Orient, upon all of which Miss Plalifax had pains- takenly fixed her attention ; hut one afternoon she ordered a hlue serge travelling dress, and refused one or two literary engagements for the present, and the next day wrote to Lady Halifax that she had decided to go. Her father received her decision with more relief than he meant to show, and Janet had a bitter half- hour over it. Then she plunged with energy into her arrangements, and Lawrence Cardiff made her inconsistently happy again with the interest he took in them, supplemented by an extremely dainty little travelling clock. He became suddenly so solicitous for her tliat she sometimes quivered before the idea that he guessed all the reasons that were putting her to liight. Which gave her a wholly unnecessary pang, for nothing would have astonished Lawrence Cardift* more than to be confronted, at the moment, with any passion that was not his own. f A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 259 person. In nore or less, Her father fond humour old interest ship for her. [frida Bell— together ! — lie situation, res on which t ; she was hich she did imand. She ** American count of the ,vels in the X had pains- iternoon she , and refused [the present, fax that she 1 more relief had a bitter with energy Cardiff made the interest m extremely ,me suddenly nes quivered the reasons cli gave her thing would ore than to any passion CHAPTER XXXIII. Ki:ndal, as the door closed behind Elfrida on the afternoon of her last sitting, shutting him in with himself and the portrait on the easel and the revelation she had made, did his ])cst to feel contrition, and wondered that he was so littlo successful. lie assured himself that he had been a brute ; yet in an uncompromising review of all that ho had ever said or done in connection with Elfrida, he failed to satisfy his own indignation with himself by discovering any occasion upon which his brutality had been particularly obvious. He remembered with involuntary self .. •♦iiication how distinctly she had insisted upor ca. '.radcrir between them ; how she had spurnvv. ewu-ything that savoured of another standard .i n^ inners on his part; how she had actually h»td Jiu curious taste to want him to call her ** . ^ ^hap," and how it had grated. He remembered her only half-veiled invitation, her challenge to him to see as much as he cared, and to make what he could of her. Ho was to blame for accepting, but he would have been a conceited ass if he had thought of the danger of a result like this. In the midst of his reflections an idea came to him about the portrait, and he observed with irritation, after giving it a few touches, that the light was irre- trievably gone for the day. Next morning he worked fur three hours at it without a pang, and in the afternoon, with relaxed nerves and a high heart, he took his hat and turned his face towards Kensington Square. The distance was considerable, but he walked, lightly, rapidly, with a conscious enjoyment of that kind of relief to his wrought nerves, his very limbs 26o A DAUGIlTHIl OF TO-DAY. C'l I 1i • l1 t: drawing energy from the knowledge of his finislied work. Never before had ho felt so completely tlio divine sense of success, and though he had worked at the portrait with passionate concentration from the beginning, this realization had come to him only the day before, when, stepping back to look with Elfrida, ho perceived what ho had done. Troubled as the revelation was, in it ho saw him- self a master, lie had for once escaped, and ho felt that the escape was a notable one, from thu tyranny of his brilliant technique. He had sub- jected it to his idea, which had grow^n upon the canvas obscure to him under his own brush until that fhial moment; and he recognized with astonish- ment how relative and incidental the truth of the treatment seemed in comparison with the truth of the idea. "With the modern scornful word for the literary value of paintings on his lips, Kendal was forced to admit, that in this his consummate picture, as he very truly thought it, the chief significance lay elsewhere than in the brushing and the colour — they were only its dramatic exponents — and the knowledge of this brought him a new and glorious sense of control. It had already carried him further in power, this portrait, it would carry him further in place, thiai anything he had yet done, and the thought gave a sparlde to the delicious ineffable content that bathed his soul. He felt that the direction of his \Yalk intensified his eager physical joy in it. Ho was going to Janet with his success as he had alwa}s gone to her. As soon as the absorbing vision of his work admitted another perception, it was Janet's sympathy, Janet's applause that mingled itself with his certain rew^ard. He could not say that it had inspired him in the least, but it formed a very essential part of his triumph. He could wish her more exacting, but bis finished iplctcly the liacl worked ration from imo to him ick to look had done, ic saw him- )ecl, and ho e, from Ihu [e had sub- n upon the brush until th astonish- ruth of the the truth of the literary . was forced cture, as he ficance lay he colour — —and the nd glorious arried him I carry him 1 yet done, le delicious il. He felt d his eager Janet with her. As k admitted ,thy, Janet's tain reward, him in the part of his vucting, but A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 26 1 this time ho had done something that should make her less easy to satisfy in the future. Un- consciously ho hastened his steps through the gardens, switching olY r daisy-head now and then with his stick as he went, and pausing only once, when he found himself, to his utter astonishment, asking a purely incidental errand boy if he wanted sixpence. Janet, in the drawing-room, received him with hardly a quickening of pulse. It was so nearly over now ; she seemed to have packed up a good part of her tiresome heart-ache with the warm things Lady Halifax had dictated for the Atlantic. She had a vague expectation that it would re- appear, but not until she unlocked the box in mid- ocean, where it wouldn't matter so much. She knew that it was only reasonable and probable that she should sec him again before they left for Liverpool. She had been expecting this visit, and she meant to be unflinching with herself when she exchanged farewells w4th him. She meant to make herself believe that the occasion w^as quite an ordinary one — also until afterwards, when her feelings about it would be of less consequence. ** Well," she asked directly, with a failing heart, as she saw his face, ** what is your good news •? " Kendal laughed aloud — it was delightful to be anticipated. " So I am unconsciously advertising it," he said. ''Guess!" His tone had the vaunting glory of a lover's — a lover new to his lordship, with his privileges still sweet upon his lips. Janet felt a little cold contraction about her heart, and sank quickly into the nearest armchair. ** How can I guess," she said, looking behind him at the wall, which she did not see, "without anything to go upon ? Give me a hint." 262 A DAlMillTKK OF TU -DAV. Cl it Kendal laughed again. ** It's very simple, and you know something about it already." Then she was not mistaken — there was no chance of it. She tried to look at him with smiling sympathetic intelligence, while her whole being quivered in anticipation of the blow that was comnig. ** Does it — does it concern another person ? " she faltered. Kendal looked grave, and suffered an instant's compunction. " It does — it does indeed," he assured her. ** It concerns Miss Elfrida Bell very much, in a way. — Ah," ho went on im- patiently, as she still sat silent, **wliy are you so unnaturally dull, Janet ? I've finished that young woman's portrait, and it is more — satisfactory — than I ever in my life dared hope that any picture of mine would be." "Is that all?" The words escaped her in a quick breath of relief. Her face was crimson, and the room seemed to swim. ** All ! " she hoard Kendal say reproachfully. ** Wait until you see it ! " He experienced a shade of dejection, and there was an instant's silence between them, during which it seemed to Janet that the world was made over again. ** That young woman!" She dis- loyally extracted the last suggestion of indifference out of the phrase, and found it the sweetest she had heard for months. But her brain whirled with the effort to decide what it could possibly mean. ** I hope you have made it as beautiful as Elfrida is," she cried, with sharp self-reproof. *' It must have been difUcult to do that." "I have made it— what she is, I think," he answered, again with that sudden gravity. ''It V. A DAinnn'KK ov to da v. 26 y simple, and M icro wiiH no at him witli lo her whole >low that was )cr8ony " sho an instant's^ indeed," ho Elfrida Bell rent on im- y are you so d that young atisfactory — b any picture k hreath of room seemed sproachfully. 1, and there lem, during d was made Sho dis- inditference Jweetest she ain whirled lid possihly n il as Elfrida *'It must think," he avity. **lt is 80 liki! my conception of her which I have ucvtr felt permitted to explain to you, that I feel as if I had stolor a march upon her. You nuist see it. When will you come ? It goes in the day after to-morrow, hut I can't wait for your opinion till it's hung." "Hike your calm reliance upon the Committee," Janet laughed. " Suppose " *' I won't. It will go on the line," Kendal returned confidently. " I did nothing last year that I would permit to he compared with it. Will you come to-morrow ? " "Impossihle. I haven't two consecutive minutes to-morrow. We sail, you know, on Thursday." Kendal looked at her hlankly. " You sail ■ On Thursday?" '* I am going to America, Lady Halifax and I, and Elizabeth of course. We are to be away a year. Lady Halifax is buying tickets, I am collect- ing light literature, and Elizabeth is in pursuit of facts. Oh, we are deep in preparation. I thought you knew." *' How could I know ? " " Elfrida didn't tell you, then ? " " Did she know ? " ** Oh yes — ten days ago." *' Odd that she didn't mention it." Janet told herself that it was odd, but found with some surprise that it was not more than odd. There had been a time when the discovery that she and her affairs were of so little consequence to her friend, would have given her a wondering panr ; but that time seemed to have passed. Sho talkt 1 lightly on about her journey ; her voice and her thoughts had suddenly been freed. She dilated upon the pleasures she anticipated as if they had been real, skimming over the long spaces of his silence, and gathering gaiety as he grew more and 264 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. C^ more sombre. When he rose to go, their moods had changed; the brightness and the flush ^ycre hers, and his face spoke only of a puzzled dejection, an anxious uncertainty. " So it is good-bye," he said as she gave him her hand, ** for a year ? " Something in his voice made her look up suddenly, with such an unconscious tenderness in her eyes as he had never seen in any other woman's. She dropped them before he could be quite certain he recognized it, though his heart was beating in a way which told him there had been no mistake. **Lady Halifax means it to be a year," she answered. And surely, since it was to be a year, he might keep her hand an instant longer. The full knowledge of what this girl was to him seemed to descend upon John Kendal then, and he stood silent under it, pale and grave eyed, baring his heart to the rush of the first serious emotion life had brought him, filled with a single conscious desire — that she should show him that sweetness in her eyes again. But she looked wilfully down, and he could only come closer to her, with a sudden muteness upon his ready lips, and a strange new-born fear wrestling for posses- sion of him. For in that moment Janet, hitherto HO simple, so approachable, as it were so available, had become remote, dillicult, incomprehensible. Kendal invested her with the change in himself, and quivered in uncertainty as to what it might do with her. He seemed to have nothing to trust to but that one glance for knowledge of the girl his love hod newly exalted ; and still she stood beforo him looking down. He took two gj three vague steps into the middle of the room, drawing her witli him. In their nearness to each other the silence between them held them intoxicatingiy. I r. their moods flush were led dejection, iie gave him up suddenly, in her e,yes man's. She juite certain was beatinf]j ad been no year," she 3 be a year, ger. 1 was to him il then, and grave eyed, first serious vith a single •w him that she looked ae closer to ready lips, for posses- ct, hitherto available, )rchensible. in himself, it it might ing to trust the girl his lOod before iree vague awing her other the xicatiugiy, A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 265 and he had her in his arms before he found occasion to say between lingering kisses upon her hair — ^*You can't go^ Janet. You must stay — and marry me." « • • « « "I don't know," wrote Lawrence Cardiff in a postscript to a note to ^liss Bell that evening, " that Janet will thank me for forestalling her with su « *' Yes, I think so," she said ; but her eyes were preoccupied, and the lover in him resented it. **What is it?" he asked. ** What has happened, dear?" She looked down at an open letter in her hand, and for a moment said nothing. ** I don't know whether I ought to tell you, but it would be a relief." "Can there be anything you ought not to tell me ? " he insisted tenderly. ** Perhaps, on the other hand, I ought," she said reflectively. **It may help you to a proper definition of my character, and then — you may think less of me. Yes, I think I ought." ** Darling, for Heaven's sake don't talk non- sense." ** I had a letter — this letter — a little while ago, from Elfrida Boll." She held it out to him. *' Head it ! " Kendal hesitated and scanned her face. She was smiling now; she had the look of amused dismay that might greet an ineffectual blow. lie took the letter. *'If it is from Miss Bell," he said, at a sug- gestion from his conscience. ** I fancy, for some reason, it is not pleasant." '* No," she replied, ** it is not pleasant." lie unfolded the letter, recognized the character- istic broad margins and the repressed, rounded perpendicular hand with its supreme effort after significance, and his face reflected a tinge of his old amused curiosity. It was only a reflection, and yet it distinctly embodied the idea that ho might be on the brink of a further discovery. He glanced at Janet again. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and she was looking straight before her with smilingly grave lips and lowered lids, which nevcithcless gave him a glimpse of retrospection. A DAUCIllTEli OF TO-DAY. 267 sr eyes were ited it. LS happened, in her hand, [ don't know would be a t not to tell ought," she to a proper a — you may t." 't talk non- e while ago, out to him. r face. She : of amused 1 blow. He d, at a sug- cy, for some mt." JO character- jed, rounded 3 eh'ort after taige of his a rellection, dea that ho icovery. lie were clasped it before her tl lids, which utrospection. He felt the beginnings of indignation, yet ho looked back at the letter acquisitively ; its interest was intrinsic. *' I feel that I can no longer hold myself in lionour," he read, *' if I refrain further from defining the personal situation between us as it appears to me. That I have let nearly three weeks go by without doing it, you may put it down to my weakness and selfishness, to your own charm, to what you will ; but I shall be glad if you will not withhold the blame that is due me in the matter, for I have wronged you, as well as myself, in keeping silence. ** Look, it is all here in a nutshell. Xothini/ /.s* vhanaed. I have tried to believe otherwise, but the truth is stronger than my will. My opinion of you is a naked uncompromising fact ; I cannot drape it or adorn it, or even throw around it a mist of charity. It is inalterably there, and in any future intercourse with you, such intercourse as we have had in the past, I should only dash myself for ever against it. I do not clearly see upon w hat level you accepted me in the beginning ; but I am absolutely firm in my belief that it was not such as I would have tolerated if I had known. To-day at all events I am confronted with the proof that I have not had your confidence, that you have not thought it worth while to be single- minded in your relation to me. From a personal point of view there is more that I might say, but perhaps that is damning enough, and I have no desire to be abusive, it is o.»> my conscience to add, moreover, thai 1 find you a sophist, and your sophistry a little vulgar. 1 find that you compromise with your ambitions, which in them- selves are not above reproach from any point of view. 1 Ihid you adulterating \vli;it ought to be 268 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. C';! i> J 4 the pure stream of ideality with muclJy considera- tions of what the people are pleased to call the moralities, and with .the feebler contamination of the conventionalities." " I couldn't smoke with her," commented Janet, reading over his shoulder. *' It wasn't that I objected in the least, but it made me so very — uncomfortable that I would never try a second time." Kendal's smile deepened, and he read on without answering except by pressing her finger-tips against his lips. **I should be sorry to deny your great clever- ness and your pretensions to a certain sort of artistic interpretation. But to mo tho artist hixirgcois is an outsider, who must remain outside, lie has nothing to gain by fellowship with me, ind I — pardon me— have much to lose, ** So, if you please, we will go our i oparato ways, and doubtless will represent i:ach lo the other an experiment that has fai!eur i oparatc ^ac'li 10 the . Yoii will ri.!3ely sorry. 1 rely as I y b'ing you lave already lly scratched litten under stand that. IDA Bkll. at I fancied g time ago, the colour I rememher of that fair tiful, 1 will iograph of a painting which I like — which represents art as I have learned to kneel to it." thri Kendal read this, communication a look of amusement until he came to the post- script. Then ho threw hack his head and laughed outright. Janet's face had changed ; she tried to smile in concert, hut the effort way rather l)itcous. " Oh, Jack," she said, ** please take it seriously." But he laughed on irrcpressihly. She tried to cover his lips. *' Ihni't shout so! " she hegged, as if there were illness in the house or a funeral next door ; and he saw something in her face which stopped him. " My darling, it can't hurt ; it doesn't, does it ? " ** I'd like to say no, hut it does a little. Not so much as it would have done a little while ago." ** Are you going to accept Miss ]3eirs souvenir of her shattered ideal'? That's the hest thing in the letter ; that's really supreme ! " and Kendal,, still hroadly mirthful, stretched out his hand to take it again ; hut Janet drew it hack. **No," sh(^ said, **of course not; that was silly of her. But a good deal of the rest is true, I'm afraid, Jack." ** It's damnably impudent," he cried, with suldcj' anger. '* I suppose she believes it herself, anci that's the measure of its truth, llo^v dare she dogmatize to you about the art of ;ur work ? She to i/ou ! " **0h, it isn't that I care about It doesn't matter to me how little she think^ of my aims and my methods. I'm quite con rit to do my work with what artistic conception i ve got without analyzing its (piality — I'm thankful enough to have any. Besides, I'm not sure about the tinalify of her opinion " 2 70 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. f'-am r p J (.» "You nceiln't be!" Kendal interrupted \Yitli scorn. "But what hurts like a knife is that part about my sincerity. I haven't been honest with her — I haven't ! From the very beginning I've criticized her privately. I've felt all sorts of reserves and qualifications about her, and concealed them for the sake of—of I don't know what — the pleasure I had in knowing her, I suppose." " It seems to me pretty clear from this precious communication that she was quietly reciprocating," Kendal said bluntly. '* That doesn't clear me in the least. Besides, when she had made up her mind, she had th'i courage to tell me what she thought. There was some principle in that. 1 — I admire her for doing it ; but I couldn't myself." ** Thank the Lord, no ! And I wouldn't be too sure, if I were you, darling, about the unmixed heroism that dictates her letter. I dare say she fancied it was that, but " Janet's head leapt up from his shoulder. " Now you are unjus^ to her ! " she cried. " You don't know Elfrida, Jack, if you think her capable of assuming a motive " " Well, do you know what I think 7 " said Kendal with an irrelevant smile, glancing at the letter she Ji^ld in her Jiand. " I think she has kept a copy." Janet looked at him with reproachful eyes, which nevertheless had the relief of amusement in them. " Don't you ?" he insisted. " 1 — I dare say." " And she thoroughly enjoyed writing as she did. The phrases read as if she had rolled them under her tongue. It was a ((Hip, don't you see ; and the making of a rniip (,!' any kind, at any A DAUdllTKU OF TO-DAY. 271 Tupted \Yitli [ , part about with her — I vc criticized reserves and ed them for the pleasure his precious nprocating," st. Besides, she had th'i There was ler for doin^' ikhi't be too the unmixed lare say she kler. cried. ** You her capable said Kendal t the letter he has kept ichful eyes, nusemcnt in ting as she roiled them n't you see ; viiid, at any expense, is the most refined joy which liic affords that young person." ** There's sincerity in every lino ! '* *' Oh, she means what she says ; but she found an exquisite gratification in saying it which you cannot comprehend, dear. This letter is a flower of her egotism, as it were. She regards it with natural ecstasy, as an achievement " Janet shook her head. ** Oh no, no ! " she cried miserably. " You can't realize the sort of thing there was between us, dear; and how it should have been sacred to me beyond all tampering and cavilling, or it should not have been at all. It isn't that i didn't know all the time that I was disloyal to her, while she thought I was sincerely her friend. I did ! And now she has found me out ; and it serves me perfectly right — perfectly ! " Kendal reflected for a moment, and then he brought comfort to her from his last resource. *' Of course, the intimacy between two girls is a wholly different thing ; and I don't know whether the relation between Miss Bel' /.'id myself affords anv parallel to it " ''Oh, Jack ! And I thought " ** What did you think, dearest ? '\ ** I thought," said Janet, in a voice considerably muffled by contact with his tweed coat collar, " that you were perfectly, }na(Uij in love with her." ''Heavens ! " Kendal cried, as if the contingency had been physically impossible. ''It's a man's privilege to fall in love with a woman, darling, not With an incarnate idea." *' It's a very beautiful idea." *' I'm not sure of that. It looks well from the outside, but it is quite incapuiilo of any growth or much change," Kendal went on musingly; " and in the eiid — Lor*!, how a man would be bored ! " ^ 272 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. ■% J ** You arc incapable of being fair to her," came from the coat collar. '* Perhaps. I have somcthhig else to think of, fiince yesterday. Janet, look up ! " She looked up, and for a little space Elfrida ]]ell found oblivion as complete as she could have desired between them. Then — ** You were telling me," Janet said. ** Yes, your Elfrida and I had a sort of friendship too ; it began, as you know, in Paris. And I was quite aware that one does not have an ordinary friendship with her ; it accedes and it exacts more than the common relation. And I've sometimes made myself uncomfortable with the idea that she gave me credit for a more faultless conception of her than I possessed. For the honest, brutal truth is, I'm afraid, that I've only been working her out. When the portrait was finished I found that some- how I had succeeded. She saw it too, and so I fancy my false position has righted itself. So I haven't been sincere to her either, Janet. lUit my conscience seems fairly callous about it. I can't help reflecting that we are to other people pretty much what they deserve that we shall be. We can't control our respect." ** Pve lost hers," Janet repeated with depression. Kendal gave an impatient groan. " I don't think you'll miss it," he said. ** And — Jack — haven't you any compunctions about exhibiting that portrait?" " Absolutely none.' He looked at her with candid eyes. " Of course, if she wished mo to, I would destroy it. I respect her property in it so far as that ; but so long as she accepts it as the significant truth it is, I am incapable of re- gretting it. I have painted her with her permission, as I saw her, as she is. If i had given her a Hipiint or a dimple 1 could accuse myself; but 1 ■l\ A DAUOIITEII OF TODAY. 1 "^ ■♦ -/ o \ her," camo to think of, [)acc Elfrida ) could have of friendship And I was an ordinary exacts more sometimes dea that she onception of hrutal truth king her out. d that some- 00, and so I 1 itself. So Janet. lUit ahout it. 1 ther people ,ve shall be. depression. "I don't )mpunctions [i her with died mo to, )perty in it jcepts it as ^lable of re- permission, dven her a [self; but I (r o have not wronged her or gratified myself by one touch of misrepresentation." ** I am to see it this afternoon," said Janet. Unconsciously she was looking forward to findhi some measure of justification for herself in the portrait ; why, it would be dillicult to say. "Yes; I put it into its frame witli my own hands yesterday. I don't know when anything has given me so much pleasure. And so far as Miss Bell is concerned," he went on, **it is an unpleasant thing to say, but one's acquaintance with her seems more and more to resolve itself into an opportunity for observation, and to be without significance other than that. I tell you frankly 1 began to see that when I found I shared what she called her friendsliip with Golightly Tickc. And I think, dear, with people like you and me, any more serious feeling towards her is impossible." "Doesn't it distress you to think that she be- lieves you incapable of speaking of her like this ? " ** I think," said Kendal, slowly, "that she knows how I would be likely to speak of her." "Well," Janet returned, "I'm glad you haven't reason to suffer about her as I do. And I don't know at all how to answer her letter." " I'll tell you," Kendal replied. He jumped up and brought her a pen and a sheet of paper and a blotting-pad, and sat down again beside her, holding the ink-bottle. "Write *My dear Miss lielL' " "But she began her letter without any formality." " Never mind, that's a cheapness that you needn't imitate even for the sake of politeness. Write *My dear Miss Bell.' " Janet wrote it. " * I am sorry to find,' " Kendal dictated slowly, a few words at a time, " ' that the Haws in my 74 A DAUGllTEU OF TO-DAY. I regard for you arc suffieientl} fonsidcrablo — to attract your attention as strongly as your letter indicates. The right of judgment on so personal a matter — is indisputably yours, however, — and 1 write to acknowledge, not to question it.* " " Dear, that isn't as I feel." " It's as you will feel," Kendal replied ruthlessly. '* Now add, * I have to acknowledge the very candid expression of your opinion of myself, — which does not lose in interest — by the somewhat exaggerated idea of its value which appears to have dictated it, — and to thank you for your extremely kind offer to send me a picture. I am afraid, however, — even in view of the idyllic con- sideration you mention, — I cannot allow myself to take advantage of that.' ** On the whole I wouldn't allude to the shattered ideal." *' Oh no, dear. Go on." *' Or the fact that you probably wouldn't be able to hang it up," he added grimly. " Now write, — 'You may be glad to know that the episode in my life — which your letter terminates — appears to me to be of less importance than you perhaps imagine it, — notwithstanding a certain soreness over its close.* " '* It doesn't. Jack." *' It will. I wouldn't say anything more if I were you ; just * Yours very truly, Janet Cardiff.' " She wrote as he dictated, and then read the letter slowly over from the beginning. ** It sounds very hard, dear," she said, lifting eyes to his that he saw were full of tears, *'and as if I didn't care." ** My darling," he said, taking her into his arms, ** I hope you don't — I hope you won't care, after to-morrow. And now don't you think we ' have had enough of Miss Elfrida Bell for the present ? " I r. A DAUUIITKR oV TO-DAY. 275 sidcrablo — to a your letter I so personal rover, — and 1 it; " cd ruthlessly. Igo the very of myself, — ihc somewhat h appears to jrou for your icture. I am le idyllic con- llow myself to ) the shattered ouldn't he ahle * Now write, — episode in my appears to mo srhaps imagine 3ness over its ing more if I Wet Cardiff.' '* hen read the le said, lifting of tears, *' and her into his ^ou won't care, you think wo I Bell for the CIIAPTEU XXW. At throe o'clock, one hour hoforo lie cxpccLcd th(5 CardilYs, John Kendal ran up the stah's to h'm studio. The door stood ajar, and with a jealous sense of his possession within, ho reproached him- self for his carelessness in leaving it so. lie had placed the portrait the day hefore where all thc^ light in the room fell upon it, and his Ih'st hasty impression of the place assured him that it stood there still. When ho looked directly at it ho instinctively shut tho door, made a step or two forward, closed his eyes, and so stood for a moment, with his hand hefore them. Then with a Rroan, "Damnation!" he opened them again and faced the fact. The portrait wrs literally in rags. They hung from the top of the frame and swung over the hottom of it. Hardly enough of the canvas remained unriddled to show that it had represented anything human. Its destruction was ahsolute— fiendish it seemed to Kendal. He dropped into a chair and stared with his knee locked in his liands. **I)aumation ! " he repeated with a wliite face. '* I'll never approach it again." And then he added grimly, still speaking aloud, "Janet will say I deserved it." lie had not an instant's doubt of the author of the destruction, and he remem])ered with a Hash in connection witli it the little silver-handled Algerian dagger that pinned one of Nudie Talie- sky's studies against the wall of Elfrida's room. It was not till a (luarter of an hour afterwards that he thought it worth while to pick up the noto that lay on the table addressed to him, and then IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // {./ k Alt m. K, 1.0 1^ lis I.I 1^ 1^ 2.2 E ^ IIIIIM ^^l IL25 i 1.4 18 1.6 V v; % '^ 5 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 873-4503 ,%^4 4^ ^* r^Cf i/.. CI 1 1 1 : i 1 1 •!». 1 >4'-^ 1 9 - 'W i 'I :■ i 1 r >k.. * i I: 276 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. he opened it with a nauseated sense of her iin- 'lecessary insistence. ** I have come here this morning," she had written, ** determined either to kill myself or it. It is impossible, I find, notwithstanding all that I said, that both should continue to exist. I cannot explain further ; you must not ask it of me. You may not believe me when I tell you that I struggled hard to let it be myself. I had such a hideous doubt as to which had the best right to live. But I failed there — death is too ghastly. So I did what you see. In doing it I think I committed the unforgivable sin — not against you, but against art. It may be some satisfaction to you to know that I shall never wholly respect myself again in consequence." A word or two scratched out, and then — " Understand that I bear no malice toward you, have no blamo for you, only honour. You acted under the very highest obligation. You could not have done otherwise. ***** And I am glad to think that I do not destroy with your work the joy you had in it." * * * Kendal noted the consideration of this final statement with a cynical laugh, and counted the asterisks. Why the devil hadn't he locked the door ! His confidence in her had been too ludicrous. He read the note half through once again, and then with uncontrollable impatience tore it into shreds. To have done it at all was hideous, but to try and impress herself in doing it was disgust- ing. He reflected with a smile of incredulous contempt upon what she had said about killing herself, and wondered in his anger how she could be so blind to her own disingenuousness. Five asterisks — she had made them carefully — and )AY. A DAUGIITER OF TO-DAY. ''-11 ase of her un- ing," slie had I myself or it. ,nding all that e to exist. I I not ask it of hen I tell you myself. I had 1 had the best —death is too . In doing it vable sin — not may be some I shall never [sequence. " A ice toward you, ,r. You acted You could not * And I am vith your work of this final d counted the le locked the I too ludicrous. ce again, and e tore it into 5 hideous, but t was disgust- f incredulous about killing low she could usness. Five are fully — and then the preposterousness about what she had destroyed and what she hadn't destroyed — and then more asterisks ! What had she thought they could possibly signify ? — what could anything she might say possibly signify ? In a savage rudimentary way he went over the ethical aspect of the affair, coming to no very clear conclusion. lie would have destroyed the thing himself if she had asked him, but she should have asked him ! And even in his en- grossing indignation he could experience a kind of spiritual blush as he recognized how safe his concession was behind the improbability of its condition. Finally he wrote a line to Janet, in- forming her that the portrait had sustained an injury, and postponing her and her father's visit to the studio. He would come in the morning to tell her about it, he added, and despatched the missive by the boy downstairs, post haste, in a cab- It would be to-morrow, he reflected, before he could screw himself up,to talking about it, even to Janet. For that day he must be alone with his discomfiture. ***** In the days of his youth and adversity, long before he and the public were upon speaking terms, Mr. George Jasper had found encouragement of a substantial sort with Messrs. Pittman, Pitt and Sanderson, of Ludgate Hill, which was a well- known explanation of the fact that this brilliant author clung in the main to a ratlier old-fashioned firm of publishers when the dimensions of his reputation gave him a proportionate choice. It explained also the circumstance that Mr. Jasper's notable critical acumen was very often at the service of his friend, Mr. Pitt — Mr. Pittman was dead, as at least one member of a London publish- ing lirm is apt to be — in cases where manuscripts 278 A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. tl f n-h 1 1 of any curiously distiiictive character from un- known authors puzzled his perception of the truly expedient thing to do. Mr. Arthur Rattray, of the Illustrated Atjc, had personal access to Mr. Pitt, and had succeeded in confusing him very much indeed as to the probable success of a book by an impressionistic young lady friend of his, which he called "An Adventure in Stageland," and which Mr. llattray declared to have every element of unconventional interest. Mr. Pitt dis- trusted unconventional interest, distrusted impres- sionistic literature, and especially distrusted books by young lady friends. Rattray, nevertheless, showed a suspicious indifference to its being ac- cepted, and an irritating readiness to take it somewhere else, and Mr. Pitt knew Rattray for a sagacious man. And so it happened that, returning late from a dinner where he had taken refuge in two or three extremely indigestible dishes from being bored entirely to extinction, George Jasper found Elfrida's manuscript, in a neat, thick, oblong paper parcel, waiting for him on his dressing-table. He felt himself particularly wide awake, and he had a consciousness that the evening had made a very small inroad upon his capacity for saying clever things. So he went over "An Adventure in Stageland " at once, and in writing his opinion of it to Mr. Pitt, which he did with some elaboration a couple of hours later, he had all the relief of a revenge upon a well-meaning hostess, without the reproach of having done her the slightest harm. It is probable that if Mr. Jasper had known that the opinion of the firm's "reader" was to find its way to the author, he would have expressed himself in terms of more guarded commonplace, for we cannot believe that he still cherished a sufficiently lively resentment at having his hand publicly kissed by a pretty girl to do otherwise; AY. A DAUGUTER OF TO-DAY. 2 79 Lcter from un- Dn of the truly Lir Rattray, of access to Mr. sing him very icess of a book friend of his, in Stageland," to have every Mr. Pitt dis- trusted impres- iistrusted books ', nevertheless, its being ac- 3ss to take it *v Rattray for a . that, returning taken refuge in )le dishes from George Jasper it, thick, oblong 5 dressing-table, awake, and he ng had made a ,city for saying *'An Adventure ;ing his opinion ;ome elaboration 1 the relief of a ess, without the slightest harm, liad known that )r" was to jBnd have expressed i commonplace, bill cherished a laving his hand do otherwise; but Mr. Pitt had not thought it necessary to tell him of this condition, which Rattray, at Elfrida's express desire, had exacted. As it happened, no- body can ever know precisely what he wrote except Mr. Pitt, who has forgotten, and Mr. Arthur Rattray, who tries to forget ; for the letter, the morning after it was received, which was the morning after the portrait met its fate, lay in a little charred heap in the fireplace of Elfrida's room when Janet Cardiff pushed the screen aside at last and went in. Kendal had come as he promised and told her everything. He had not received quite the measure of indignant sympathy he had expected, and Janet had not laughed at the asterisks. On the other hand, she had sent him away, with unnatural gravity of demeanour, rather earlier than he meant to go, and without telling him why. She thought, as she directed the cabman to Essex Court, Fleet Street, that she would tell him why afterwards; and all the way there she thought of the most explicit terms in which to inform Elfrida that her letter had been the product of hardness of heart, that she really felt quite different, and had come to tell her, purely for honesty's sake, how she did feel. After a moment of ineffectual calling on the other side of the screen her voice failed her, and in dumb terror that would not be reasoned away it seemed that she saw the outlines of the long, still, slender figure under the bed draperies while she still looked helplessly at a flock of wild geese flying over Fugi Yama. Buddha smiled at her from the table with a kind of horrid expectancy, and the litter of papers round him in Elfrida's handwriting mixed their familiarity with his mockery. She had only to drag her trembling limbs a little further to know that the room was 28o A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. c- ,, r:j m'^-- i pregnant with the presence of death. Some white tube roses in a vase seemed, to make it palpable with their fragrance. She ran wildly to the window and drew back the curtain ; the pale sunlight flooding in, gave a little white nimbus to a silver ring upon the floor. * * * * * The fact may not be without interest that six months afterwards "An Adventure in Stageland " was published by Messrs. Lash and Black, and met with a very considerable success. Mr. Arthur Eattray undertook its disjoosai, with the consent of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Bell, who insisted without much difficulty that he should receive a percentage of the profits for his trouble. Mr. Eattray was also of assistance to them when, as soon as the expense could be managed, these two middle-aged Americans, whose grief was not less impressive because of its twang, arrived in London to arrange that their daughter's final resting-place should be changed to her native land. Mr. Bell told him in confidence that, while he hoped he was entirely devoid of what you might call race prejudice against the English people, it didn't seem as if he could let anybody belonging to him lie under the British flag for all time, and found it a comfort that Eattray understood. Sparta is divided in its opinion whether the imposing red granite monument they erected in the cemetery, with plenty of space left for the final earthly record of Leslie and Margaret Bell, is not too expensive, considering Mr. Bell's means, and too conspicuous considering the circumstances. It has hitherto occurred to nobody, however, to doubt the appropriateness of the texts inscribed upon it in connection with three little French words which Elfrida, in the charmingly apologetic letter which she lelt for her parents, commanded iMl I DAY. A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. 281 ;h. Some white ake it palpable ly to the window 3 pale sunlight ibiis to a silver aterest that six in Stageland " ind Black, and 5S. Mr. Arthur itli the consent nsisted without ive a percentage r. Eattray was as soon as the wo middle-aged less impressive idon to arrange place should be Bell told him lie was entirely :ejudice against as if he could ider the British comfort that ; to be put there — ** Paii fcffimc — artiste." Janet, who once paid a visit to the place, hopes in all seriousness that the sleeper underneath is not aware of the combination. Miss Kimpsey boards with the Bells now, and her relation to them has become almost daughterly. The three are swayed to the extent of their capacities by what one might call a cult of Elfrida. Her death has long ago been explained by the fact that a grand-aunt of Mrs. Bell's suffered from melancholia. Mr. and Mrs. John Kendal's delightful circle of friends say that they live an idyllic life in Devonshire. But even in the height of some domestic joy a silence sometimes falls between them still. Then, I fancy, he is thinking of an art that has slipped away from him, and she of a loyalty she could not hold. The only person whose equanimity is entirely undisturbed is Buddha. In his place among the mournful Magdalcns of Mrs. Bell's drawing-room in Sparta Buddha still smiles. whether the hey erected in e left for the Margaret Bell, . Bell's means, circumstances, however, to ;exts inscribed little French igly apologetic H, commanded THE END. 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