ly enough.
He made one attempt, as Elfrida unbuttoned her gloves at
their little table at the "Hyacinth," to get her to talk
about her work for the _Age_.

"Please, _please_ don't mention that," she said. "It is
too revolting. You don't know how it makes me suffer."

A moment later she returned to it of her own accord,
however. "It is absurd to try to exact pledges from
people," she said, "but I should really be happier
--_much_ happier--if you would promise me something."

"'By Heaven, I will promise _any_ thing!'" Kendal quoted,
laughing, from a poet much in vogue.

"Only this--I hope I am not selfish--" she hesitated;
"but I think--yes, I think I must be selfish here. It is
that you will never read the _Age_."

"I never do," leapt to his lips, but he stopped it in
time. "And why!" he asked instead.

"Ah, you know why! It is because you might recognize my
work in it--by accident you might--and that would be so
painful to me. It is _not_ my best--please believe it is
not my best!"

"On one condition I promise," he said: "that when you do
your best you will tell me where to find it"

She looked at him gravely and considered. As she did so
it seemed to Kendal that she was regarding his whole
moral, mental, and material nature. He could almost see
it reflected in the glass of her great dark eyes.
"Certainly, yes. That is fair--if you really and truly
care to see it. And I don't know," she added, looking up
at him from her soup, "that it matters whether you do or
not, so long as you carefully and accurately pretend that
you do. When my best, my real best, sees the light of
common--"

"Type," he suggested.

"Type," she repeated unsmilingly, "I shall be so insatiate
for criticism--I ought to say praise--that I shall even
go so far as to send you a marked copy, very plainly
marked, with blue pencil. Already," she smiled with a
charming effect of assertiveness, "I have bought the blue
pencil."

"Will it come soon?" Kendal asked seriously.

"_Cher ami_," Elfrida said, drawing her handsome brows
together a little, "it will come sooner than you expect
That is what I want," she went on deliberately, "more
than anything else in the whole world, to do things
--_good_ things, you understand--and to have them
appreciated and paid for in the admiration of people who
feel and see and know. For me life has nothing else,
except the things that other people do, better and worse
than mine."

"Better and worse than