been able to govern it. I have yielded, _miserable_ that
I am. But just now I felt it going away from me, Janet--"
She paused, but there was no answer. Janet was looking
contemplatively into the fire.

"And I made up my mind to say it straight out. It is
better so, don't you think?"

"Oh yes, it is better so."

"I hate you sometimes--when you suffocate me with your
cleverness--but I admire you _tremendously_ always. So
I suppose we can go on, can't we?"

"Ah!" Elfrida cried, noting Janet's hesitation with a
kind of wonder--how should it be exacted of her to be
anything more than frank? "I will go a step further to
come back to you, my Janet. I will tell you a secret--the
first one I ever had. Don't be afraid that I shall become
your stepmother and hate me in advance. That is too
absurd!" and the girl laughed ringingly. "Because--I
believe I am in love with John Kendal!"

For answer Janet turned to her with the look of one
pressed to the last extremity. "Is it true that you are
going to write your own experiences in the _corps de
ballet?_" she asked ironically.

"Quite true. I have done three chapters already. What
do you think of it? Isn't it a good idea?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Of course!"

"I think," said Janet slowly, looking into the fire,
"that the scheme is a contemptible one, and that you are
doing a very poor sort of thing in carrying it out."

"Thanks," Elfrida returned. "We are all pretty much alike,
we women, aren't we, after all! Only some of us say so
and some of us don't. But I shouldn't have thought you
would have objected to my small rivalry _before the
fact!_"

Janet sighed wearily, and looked out of the window. "Let
me lend you an umbrella," she said; "the rain has come."

"It won't be necessary, thanks," Elfrida returned. "I
hear Mr. Cardiff coming upstairs. I shall ask him to take
care of me as far as the omnibuses. Good-by!"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"Oh but--but," cried Elfrida, tragic-eyed, "you don't
understand, my friend. And these pretences of mine are
unendurable--I won't make another. This is the real
reason why I can't go to your house: Janet knows
--everything there is to know. I told her--I myself--in
a fit of rage ten days ago, and then she said things and
I said things, and--and there is nothing now between us
any more!"

Lawrence Cardiff looked grave. "I am sorry for that," he
said.

A middle-aged gentleman in apparently hopeless love does
not conf