ed, 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 lightest 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 thought with a somewhat
repelled amusement of any attempt of theirs to assimilate
Elfrida. It was different with the Cardiffs; but even
under their enthusiastic encouragement he was disinclined
to be anything but discreet and cautions about Elfrida.
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 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 idea of his putting any prudish
considerations on her account into the balance against
an interesting acquaintance. He had, nevertheless, a
distinct satisfaction in the fact that it was really
circumstances, in the shape of the _Decade_ article, that
had brought them together, and that he could hardly charge
himself with being more than an irresponsible agent