her eye
travel over the column or two the paper devoted to three
or four books of the week. A moment later Janet Cardiff's
name in the second paragraph had sprung at her throat,
it seemed to Elfrida, and choked her.

She could not see--she could not see! The print was so
bad, the light was infernal, the carriage jolted so. She
got up and held the paper nearer to the lamp in the roof,
staying herself against the end of a seat. As she read
she grew paler, and the paper shook in her hand. "One of
the valuable books of the year," "showing grasp of
character and keen dramatic instinct," "a distinctly
original vein," "too slender a plot for perfect symmetry,
but a treatment of situation at once nervous and strong,"
were some of the commonplaces that said themselves over
and again in her mind as she sank back into her place by
the window with the paper lying across her lap.

Her heart beat furiously, her head was in a whirl; she
stared hard, for calmness, into the swift-passing night
outside. Presently she recognized herself to be angry
with an intense still jealous anger that seemed to rise
and consume her in every part of her being. A success--of
course it would be a success if Janet wrote it--she was
not artistic enough to fail. Ah, should Janet's friend
go so far as to say that? She didn't know--she would
think afterward; but Janet was of those who succeed, and
there were more ways than one of deserving success. Janet
was a compromise; she belonged really to the British
public and the class of Academy studies from the nude
which were always draped, just a little. Elfrida found
a bitter satisfaction in this simile, and elaborated it.
The book would be one to be commended for _jeunes filles_,
and her lips turned down mockingly in the shadow. She
fancied some well-meaning critic saying, "It should be
on every drawing-room table," and she almost laughed
outright. She thought of a number of other little things
that might be said, of the same nature and equally amusing.
Her anger flamed up again at the thought of how Janet
had concealed this ambition from her, had made her, in
a way, the victim of it. It was not fair--not fair! She
could have prepared herself against it; she might have
got _her_ book ready sooner, and its triumphant editions
might at least have come out side by side with Janet's.
She was just beginning to feel that they were neck and
neck, in a way, and now Janet had shot so far ahead, in
a night, in