Cardiff. "Does
he know where it comes from and where it's going to? And
can he choose? And has he the touch? And hasn't he been
too long a Royal Academician and a member of the Church
of England, and a believer in himself? Oh no! Framley
hasn't anything to tell this generation that he couldn't
say best on canvas."

"Well," said Lady Halifax disconcertingly, "I suppose
the carriage is at the door, Lawrence, but you might just
send to inquire. The horses stand so badly, I told Peters
he might take them round and round the square."

Cardiff looked at her with amused reproach, and rang the
bell; and Janet begged somebody or anybody to have another
cup of tea. The Halifaxes always tried Janet.

They went at last, entreating Cardiff, to his annoyance,
not to come down the narrow winding stair with them to
their carriage. To him no amount of familiar coming and
going could excuse the most trivial of such negligences.
He very often put Janet into her cab, always if it rained.

The moment they left the room a new atmosphere created
itself there for the two that remained. They sought each
other's eyes with the pleasantest sense of being together
in reality for the first time, and though Janet marked
it by nothing more significant than a suggestion that
Kendal should poke the fire, there was an appreciable
admission in her tone that they were alone and free to
talk, which he recognized with great good-will. He poked
the fire, and she on her low chair, clasping her knee
with both hands, looked almost pretty in the blaze. There
had always been between them a distinct understanding,
the understanding of good-fellowship and ideas of work,
and Kendal saw with pleasure that it was going to be
renewed.

"I am dying to tell you about it," he said.

"Paris?" she asked, looking up at him. "I am dying to
hear. The people, especially the people. Lucien, what
was he like? One hears so much of Lucien--they make him
a priest and a king together. And did you go to Barbizon?"

Another in her place might have added, "And why did you
write so seldom?" There was something that closed Janet's
lips to this. It was the same thing that would not permit
her to call Kendal "Jack," as several other people did,
though her Christian name had been allowed to him for a
long time. It made an awkwardness sometimes, for she
would not say "Mr. Kendal" either--that would be a rebuke
or a suggestion of inferiority, or what not--but she
bridged it ove