certainly repeat it to her," he said. "She can't hear
such things often enough--nobody can. How shall I tell
you what she is like! She is tall, about as tall as you
are, and rather thin. She has a good color, and nice hair
and eyes."

"What colored eyes?"

"Brown, I think. No--I don't know, but not blue. And good
eyebrows. Particularly good eyebrows."

"She must be plain," Elfrida thought, "if he 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
eyebrows! It is 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
place for her. "There! I don't know who did it, and it
was the first thing Miss Cardiff asked me when I put in
my appearance 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 repeated
hungrily.

"Yes; she commissioned me to find out, and if he was
respectable to bring him there. Her father said I was to
bring him anyway. So I don't propose to find out. The
Cardiffs have burned their fingers once or twice already
handling obscure genius, and I won't take the
responsibility. But it's adorably savage, isn't it?"

"Do you really like it!" she asked. It was her first
taste of success, and the savor 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
moment.

"Immensely," he replied.

"Then," she said, with just a little more significance
in her voice than she intended, "you wou