t night she had the
air of a chidden child; she was silent and embarrassed,
and now and then he caught a glance which told him in so
many words that she was very sorry, she hadn't meant to,
she would never do it again. He did not for a moment
suspect that it referred to the scene at Lady Halifax's,
and was more than half real. It was not easy to know that
even genuine feeling, with Elfrida, required a cloak of
artifice. He put it down as a pretty pose, and found it
as objectionable as the one he had painted. He was more
curious, perhaps, but less disturbed than either of the
Cardiffs as the days went by and Elfrida made no sign.
He felt, however, that his curiosity was too irreligious
to obtrude upon Janet; besides, his knowledge of her hurt
anxiety kept him within the bounds of the simplest inquiry,
while she, noting his silence, believed him to be eating
his heart out. In the end it was the desire to relieve
and to satisfy Janet that took him to the _Age_ office.
It might be impossible for her to make such inquiries,
he told himself, but no obligation could possibly attach
to him, except--and his heart throbbed affirmatively at
this--the obligation of making Janet happier about it.
He could have laughed, aloud when he heard the scheme
from Rattray's lips--it so perfectly filled out his
picture, his future projection of Elfrida; he almost
assured himself that he had imagined and expected it.
But his desire to relieve Janet was suddenly lost in an
upstarting brood of impulses that took him to the railway
station with the smile still upon his lips. Here was a
fresh development; his interest was keenly awake again,
he would go and verify the facts. When his earlier
intention reoccurred to him in the train, he dismissed
it with the thought that what he had seen would be more
effective, more disillusionizing, than what he had merely
heard. He triumphed in advance over Janet's disillusion,
but he thought more eagerly of the pleasure of proving,
with his own eyes, another step in the working out of
the problem which he believed he had solved in Elfrida.

"Big house to-night, sir. All the stalls taken," said
the young man with the high collar in the box office when
Kendal appeared before the window.

"Pit," replied Kendal, and the young man stared.

"Pit did you say, sir? Well, you'll 'ave to look slippy
or you won't get a seat there either."

Kendal was glad it was a full house. He began to realize
how very much h