rsation."

Elfrida leaned back in her chair and threw up her head,
locking her slender fingers over her knee. "Of coarse,"
she said indifferently. "I understand 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 candor 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 the Princess Bobaloffs.
They wouldn't if they could help it They don't live their
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
--deliriously fresh," he declared. "I think they do.
Genius clings to respectability after a time. A most
worthy and amiable lady, the Princess."

Elfrida raised the arch of her eyebrows. "Much too worthy
and amiable," she ventured, 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 Lucien and distributing caramels to the
less fortunate young ladies of the studio. Then she will
pack up those pitiful attempts of hers and take them home
to New York, and spend a whole season in glorious apology
for them."

Elfrida looked at him steadily for an instant. Then she
laughed lightly. "Thanks," she said. "I see you 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