an's bow. Kendal had told
her then that Mr. Curtis was the editor of the _Consul_.
Yes, she had a right to know his name. And it might make
the faintest shadow of a difference--but no, "The Editor"
was more dignified, more impersonal; her article should
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 showed 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. With it she disposed of a great
many sweet biscuits from the biscuit box, and thereafter
lighted a cigarette. As she smoked she re-read an old
letter, a long letter in a flowing foreign hand, written
from among the haymakers at Barbizon, that exhaled a
delicate perfume. Elfrida had read it thrice for comfort
in the afternoon; now she tasted it, sipping here and
there with long enjoyment of its deliciousness. She kissed
it as she folded it up, with the silent thought that this
was the breath of her life, and soon--oh, passably
soon--she could bear the genius in Nadie's eyes again.

Then she went to bed. "You little brute," she said to
Buddha, who still smiled as she blew out the candle,
"can't you forget it?"

CHAPTER VIII.

Miss Bell arose late the next morning, which was not
unusual. Mrs. Jordan had knocked three times vainly, and
then left the young lady's chop and coffee outside the
door on the landing. If she _would_ 'ave it cold, Mrs.
Jordan reasoned, she 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
Miss Bell's breakfast generally left her uneasy in her
mind. It was not in reason, Mrs. 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 perplexing. Miss Bell was as
charming to her land-lady 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 wrapped
once, and cursoril