f for the
comfort of the assurance. "I am sure it is a great
advantage nowadays to have been brought up in America."
This was quite as delicately as Lady Halifax could possibly
manage to inform Kendal that she understood the situation.
Miss Halifax was looking absorbedly at Elfrida. "Are you
really a journalist?" Miss Halifax asked. "How nice! I
didn't know there were any ladies on the London press,
except, of course, the fashion-papers, but that isn't
quite the same, is it?"

When Miss Halifax said "How nice!" it indicated a strong
degree of interest. The threads of Miss Halifax's
imagination were perpetually twisting themselves about
incidents that had the least unusualness, and here was
a most unusual incident, with beauty and genius thrown
in! Whether she could approve it or not in connection
with Kendal, Miss Halifax would decide afterward. She
told herself that she ought to be sufficiently devoted
to Kendal to be magnanimous about his friends. Her six
years of seniority gave her the candor to confess that
she was devoted to Kendal--to his artistic personality,
that is, and to his pictures. While Kendal turned a still
uncomfortable back upon them, showing Lady Halifax what
he had done since she had been there last--she was always
pitiless in her demands for results--Elfrida talked a
little about "the press" to Miss Halifax. Very lightly
and gracefully she talked about it, so lightly and
gracefully that Miss Halifax obtained an impression which
she has never lost, that journalism for a woman had ideal
attractions, and privately resolved if ever she were
thrown upon the bleak world to take it up. As the others
turned toward them again Elfrida noticed the
conscience-stricken glance which Kendal gave to the
tea-tray.

"Oh," she said, with a slight enhancement of her pretty
Parisian gurgle, "I am very guilty--you must allow me to
say that I am very guilty indeed! Mr. Kendal did not
expect to see me to-day, and in his surprise he permitted
me to eat up all the cakes! I am so sorry! Are there no
more--anywhere?" she asked Kendal, with such a gay
pretence of tragic grief that they all laughed together.
She went away then, and while they waited for a fresh
supply of tea, Kendal did his best to satisfy the curiosity
of the Halifaxes about her. He was so more than thankful
she had convinced them that she was a person about whom
it was proper to be curious.

CHAPTER XII.

It was Arthur Rattray who generally