e habit of dining, could hardly have
thought themselves capable of inspiring. It seemed to
Janet that nobody crossed their path until his or her
reputation was made, and that by the time people had made
their reputations they succumbed to them, and became
uninteresting.

She told herself at once that nothing Kendal could have
said would have prepared her for this American, and that
certainly nothing she had seen or read of other Americans
did. Elfrida was standing beside the open window looking
out. As Janet came in a breeze wavered through and lifted
the fluffy hair about her visitor's forehead, and the
scent of the growing things in the little square came
with it into the room. She turned slowly, with grave wide
eyes and a plaintive indrawing of her pretty underlip,
and held out three full-blown gracious Marechal Neil
roses on long slender stems. "I have brought you these,"
she said, with a charming effect of simplicity, "to make
me welcome. There was no reason, none whatever, why I
should be welcome, so I made one. You will not be
angry--perhaps?"

Janet banished her conventional "Very glad to see you"
instantly. She took the roses with a quick thrill of
pleasure. Afterward she told herself that she was not
touched, not in the least, she did not quite know why;
but she freely acknowledged that she was more than amused.

"How charming of you!" she said. "But I have to thank
you for coming as well. Now let us shake hands, or we
shan't feel properly acquainted." Janet detected a
half-tone of patronage in her voice, and fell into a rage
with herself because of it. She looked at Elfrida sharply
to note a possible resentment, but there was none. If
she had looked a trifle more sharply she might have
observed a subtler patronage in the little smile her
visitor received this commonplace with; but, like the
other, she was too much occupied in considering her
personal effect. She had become suddenly desirous that
it should be a good one.

Elfrida went on in the personal key. "I suppose you are
very tired of hearing such things," she said, "but I owe
you so much."

This was not quite justifiable, for Miss Cardiff was only
a successful writer in the magazines, whose name was very
familiar to other people who wrote in them, and had a
pleasant association for the reading public. It was by
no means fame; she would have been the first to laugh at
the magniloquence of the word in any personal connection.
For her father